[House Hearing, 108 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
NUCLEAR R&D AND
THE IDAHO NATIONAL LABORATORY
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 24, 2004
__________
Serial No. 108-64
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/science
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______
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE
HON. SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York, Chairman
RALPH M. HALL, Texas BART GORDON, Tennessee
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois
CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
DANA ROHRABACHER, California LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California
KEN CALVERT, California NICK LAMPSON, Texas
NICK SMITH, Michigan JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland MARK UDALL, Colorado
VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan DAVID WU, Oregon
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota MICHAEL M. HONDA, California
GEORGE R. NETHERCUTT, JR., BRAD MILLER, North Carolina
Washington LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois ZOE LOFGREN, California
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland BRAD SHERMAN, California
W. TODD AKIN, Missouri BRIAN BAIRD, Washington
TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois DENNIS MOORE, Kansas
MELISSA A. HART, Pennsylvania ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia JIM MATHESON, Utah
PHIL GINGREY, Georgia DENNIS A. CARDOZA, California
ROB BISHOP, Utah VACANCY
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas VACANCY
JO BONNER, Alabama VACANCY
TOM FEENEY, Florida
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas
VACANCY
------
Subcommittee on Energy
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois, Chair
RALPH M. HALL, Texas JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut
CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania NICK LAMPSON, Texas
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois
VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California
GEORGE R. NETHERCUTT, JR., DAVID WU, Oregon
Washington MICHAEL M. HONDA, California
W. TODD AKIN, Missouri BRAD MILLER, North Carolina
MELISSA A. HART, Pennsylvania LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee
PHIL GINGREY, Georgia BART GORDON, Tennessee
JO BONNER, Alabama
SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York
KEVIN CARROLL Subcommittee Staff Director
TINA M. KAARSBERG Republican Professional Staff Member
CHARLES COOKE Democratic Professional Staff Member
JENNIFER BARKER Staff Assistant
KATHRYN CLAY Chairwoman's Designee
C O N T E N T S
June 24, 2004
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Judy Biggert, Chairman, Subcommittee
on Energy, Committee on Science, U.S. House of Representatives. 8
Written Statement............................................ 9
Statement by Representative John B. Larson, Ranking Minority
Member, Subcommittee on Energy, Committee on Science, U.S.
House of Representatives....................................... 10
Written Statement............................................ 11
Witnesses:
Mr. William D. Magwood, IV, Director of the Office of Nuclear
Energy, Science, and Technology, The Department of Energy
Oral Statement............................................... 12
Written Statement............................................ 14
Biography.................................................... 16
Dr. Alan E. Waltar, Director of Nuclear Energy, Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory
Oral Statement............................................... 17
Written Statement............................................ 19
Biography.................................................... 29
Dr. Robert L. Long, Nuclear Stewardship, LLC
Oral Statement............................................... 29
Written Statement............................................ 31
Biography.................................................... 33
Financial Disclosure......................................... 34
Dr. Andrew C. Klein, Department Head and Professor, Nuclear
Engineering and Radiation Health Physics Director, Radiation
Center, Oregon State University
Oral Statement............................................... 35
Written Statement............................................ 37
Biography.................................................... 40
Discussion....................................................... 41
Appendix: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Mr. William D. Magwood, IV, Director of the Office of Nuclear
Energy, Science, and Technology, The Department of Energy...... 64
NUCLEAR R&D AND THE IDAHO NATIONAL LABORATORY
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THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 2004
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Energy,
Committee on Science,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:06 a.m., in
Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Judy
Biggert [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
hearing charter
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Nuclear R&D and
the Idaho National Laboratory
thursday, june 24, 2004
10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
2318 rayburn house office building
1. Purpose
On Thursday, June 24, 2004, the Energy Subcommittee of the U.S.
House of Representatives Committee on Science will hold a hearing to
examine the Department of Energy's (DOE) plans to establish the Idaho
National Laboratory (INL) in 2005 as the lead federal laboratory for
nuclear energy research and development (R&D).
2. Witnesses
Mr. William D. Magwood, IV, is the Director of the Office of Nuclear
Energy, Science and Technology (NE) at DOE.
Dr. Alan Waltar is the Director of Nuclear Energy at the Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and is a past President and Fellow
of the American Nuclear Society. He participated in the development of
the report Nuclear Energy: Power for the 21st Century, which was put
together by seven national laboratories.
Dr. Robert Long is the President of Nuclear Stewardship LLC, a private
consulting firm. Dr. Long chaired the Infrastructure Task Force of the
DOE Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee (NERAC), which evaluated
the status of the Idaho laboratory complex and recommended
improvements.
Dr. Andrew Klein is the Chair of the Nuclear Engineering Department at
Oregon State University. Dr. Klein currently chairs the NERAC Nuclear
Laboratory Requirements Subcommittee charged with determining the
characteristics, capabilities, and attributes of a world-class
laboratory and making recommendations for building INL into a world
leader in nuclear energy technology.
3. Overarching Questions
1. What are the vision and mission of the newly created Idaho
National Laboratory (INL)? Is DOE taking the steps necessary to
ensure INL's success?
2. How will the reorganization of the Idaho laboratory complex
affect DOE's nuclear energy R&D program? What role will other
national laboratories with significant nuclear expertise, such
as Argonne National Laboratory, play in nuclear energy R&D
after INL begins operations?
3. Is DOE's nuclear energy program on track to develop the
next-generation technologies needed to meet the
Administration's goal of an ``expansion of nuclear energy in
the United States as a major component of our national energy
policy''?
4. Overview
DOE is undertaking a major reorganization of the national
laboratory complex in Idaho with the goal of enhancing the focus on
nuclear energy R&D.
On April 30, 2003 Secretary Abraham announced that DOE would divide
the current activities of the Idaho National Engineering and
Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) into two contracts. One contract would
cover cleanup of the site, which the Federal Government has used for
nuclear activities for 55 years. This first contract is designated the
Idaho Cleanup Project (ICP). The other contract would be for the
management of a new Idaho National Laboratory that would combine the
current research activities of INEEL and Argonne National Laboratory-
West (ANL-W), which shares the Idaho site. Under the plan, INL is to be
the lead laboratory for DOE's nuclear energy R&D activities.\1\ DOE's
objective is to establish INL as the leading center in the world for
nuclear energy technology within 10 years.\2\
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\1\ Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham announced a major mission
realignment for the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental
Laboratory on July 17, 2002, establishing the site as the Nation's
leading center of nuclear energy research and development. (DOE Press
Release No. R-02-144)
\2\ A February 5, 2004 press release announcing DOE's draft Request
for Proposals for the Idaho National Laboratory management contract
states, ``DOE expects that the laboratory will be the world's leading
nuclear energy technology center within 10 years.'' (DOE Press Release
No. R-04-023)
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DOE issued the final Request for Proposals for the management and
operations contract for the new Idaho National Laboratory (INL) on May
26, 2004. The tentative award date for the INL contract is November 15,
2004, and INL is scheduled to begin operations on February 1, 2005.
This reorganization will end the 50-year association of ANL-W and
the main Argonne laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory-East (ANL-E),
located south of Chicago, IL. It is unclear how the laboratory
reorganization, and the designation of INL as the lead laboratory for
nuclear energy research, will affect ANL-E and other national
laboratories that conduct research related to nuclear energy.
The Current Idaho Laboratory Complex. The Idaho laboratory
complex--the term that refers to INEEL and ANL-W--site is 890 square
miles (roughly 85 percent the size of Rhode Island), most of which is
open land.
INEEL includes a cleanup operation involving radioactive materials
left over from the Cold War, as well as an applied engineering
laboratory. Currently, environmental management (cleanup) activities
account for slightly over 70 percent of INEEL program funding. The
remaining 30 percent of INEEL funding is divided among programs in
nuclear energy, energy efficiency and renewable energy, fossil energy,
nuclear nonproliferation and national security. INEEL is operated for
DOE by Bechtel BWXT Idaho, LLC, and employs about 6,000 people in its
cleanup and R&D operations.
The Federal Government originally established the INEEL site as the
National Reactor Testing Station in 1949. For many years, the Idaho
site housed the largest concentration of nuclear reactors in the
world--52 nuclear reactors have been built at the site, including the
U.S. Navy's first prototype nuclear propulsion system.
ANL-W, also established in 1949, is a research laboratory focused
on nuclear safety, treatment of spent nuclear fuel, nonproliferation,
decommissioning and decontamination technologies, and similar work. The
University of Chicago has operated both the main laboratory in Illinois
and the Idaho site from their beginnings. Typically, basic research is
conducted at the Illinois site, while large-scale nuclear facility
testing and development is conducted at the Idaho site. ANL-W employs
about 650 people.
5. Issues
Is DOE allocating sufficient funding to build INL into the world's lead
laboratory for nuclear energy R&D?
The Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee (NERAC)--non-
government experts appointed by DOE to give advice on nuclear energy
R&D--appointed a Task Force, which released a report this April. The
NERAC Task Force concluded, ``The funding at the Idaho Site, given the
lead lab status, is clearly insufficient.'' The Task Force also found
that for the Administration to achieve its goals for nuclear energy,
``the lead lab site at Idaho requires an immediate and significant
increase in funding to, e.g., clear up maintenance backlog and make key
facilities mission ready.'' By contrast, the Administration's fiscal
year 2005 (FY05) request for nuclear energy R&D at INL is $6 million
below the FY04 level for INEEL and ANL-W.\3\
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\3\ According to the FY05 Energy and Water Appropriations
Subcommittee report 108-554. The total funding for INEEL is about $840
million. Total funding for ANL-W is included in the overall ANL budget
and is not available separately.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
DOE has said that more funds will become available for INL as the
Idaho cleanup work is completed over the next decade. But the NERAC
Infrastructure Task Force urged DOE not to link INL funding to future
funding decreases for cleanup for two reasons. First, the cleanup
effort could go over-schedule or over-budget as it has ``many
obstacles.'' Second, INL's needs are too immediate to permit a budget
strategy that ramps up over time.
In addition, the budget for INL must be sufficient to fund the
development of the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)--discussed more
below--which DOE's strategic plan describes as being central to the
lab's new mission. The NGNP is a large, multi-year construction project
that will cost in excess of $1 billion dollars.
NERAC is continuing to review DOE's plans for INL. Earlier this
year, NERAC created a Subcommittee on Nuclear Laboratory Requirements
to build on the work of the Infrastructure Task Force. The subcommittee
is charged with identifying the characteristics, capabilities, and
attributes a world-class nuclear laboratory should possess.
What role will Argonne National Laboratory and other national
laboratories with nuclear expertise play in nuclear energy R&D
after INL begins operations?
The NERAC Infrastructure Task Force recommended that DOE's nuclear
energy R&D program continues to use facilities beyond the Idaho site,
including other national laboratories.
About 70 percent of DOE's nuclear energy R&D funds are currently
spent outside of the Idaho site. Other national laboratories with
relevant programs include Argonne, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Los
Alamos National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Sandia National
Laboratories.
How should INL balance its role as the lead laboratory for nuclear
energy R&D and as a multi-purpose laboratory?
Members of NERAC have observed that maintaining a world-class
laboratory requires supporting a sufficiently broad research program,
including fields outside of traditional nuclear engineering such as
materials science and computational science. Advantages of maintaining
a diversity of research include opening up opportunities for cross-
disciplinary research, and creating a greater draw for visiting
researchers and new employees.
It remains unclear what balance the new INL will strike between
nuclear and non-nuclear R&D. ANL-W has been dedicated exclusively to
nuclear-related R&D throughout its history. DOE has repeatedly stated
that, like the current INEEL, INL will be a multi-purpose laboratory.
Yet the current strategic plan for the Idaho site emphasizes the
laboratory's focus on nuclear-related research.\4\ Clarifying the range
of research activities appropriate for the new lab will be important to
INL's long-term success.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL)
Strategic Plan, January 2003.
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What are the objectives for the Next Generation Nuclear Power Plant
(NGNP)?
Identifying clear objectives for NGNP will be important to the
project's success. The NGNP has been described in two potentially
conflicting ways--on the one hand, as a demonstration of commercial
viability, and on the other, as a research testbed. A demonstration
project presumes more mature technology that is unlikely to be further
upgraded through government work. A testbed would presumably be more
research oriented with more expensive, leading-edge technologies.
One of the stated purposes for the NGNP is to produce hydrogen--an
important part of the Administration's hydrogen initiative. But the
commercial interest in producing hydrogen through nuclear sources is
uncertain at best, and the requirement to produce hydrogen
significantly increases the costs of the reactor and changes its
design.
6. Background on Nuclear R&D
Nuclear Industry Overview. With an installed capacity of 98.1
gigawatts, nuclear power provides 20 percent of the electricity
generated in the United States. Thirty-one states, including the
majority of the Eastern half of the country, are home to nuclear power
plants, with five states--New Jersey, Vermont, New Hampshire, South
Carolina, and New York--producing more of their electricity from
nuclear power than any other source, according to the Nuclear Energy
Institute. Illinois produces one half of its electricity through
nuclear power.
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts that nuclear
generating capacity will increase slightly by 2025, to 99.6 gigawatts
installed capacity, due to nuclear plant life extensions and increased
utilization of existing plants. However, with the May 2001 announcement
that Federal Government will ``support the expansion of nuclear energy
in the United States as a major component of our national energy
policy,'' supporters of nuclear energy project far larger increases for
nuclear power. Under EIA projections, nuclear generation capacity would
need to increase by over 60 gigawatts by 2020 to continue to provide 20
percent of the Nation's electricity. However, a significant expansion
of nuclear power will require improvements in cost, safety, waste
management, and proliferation risk.\5\ No new nuclear power plants have
been ordered since 1977.
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\5\ See for example, ``The Future of Nuclear Power, An
Interdisciplinary MIT Study,'' cited above.
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DOE Nuclear Energy R&D Programs. The Administration's FY05 budget
request for the Office of Nuclear Energy, Science, and Technology was
$409.6--about $5 million more than the FY04 comparable appropriation.
Of those amounts, the budget proposes to spend about $97 million on
R&D--a cut of about $34 million from current spending.
DOE supports four major programs in nuclear energy R&D: the Nuclear
Hydrogen Initiative, Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative, Nuclear Power
2010, and Generation IV. Each program is described below, along with
its current year funding and the funding included in Energy and Water
Appropriations Subcommittee mark for FY05.
Nuclear energy R&D conducted at the national laboratories is
allocated from the program lines described below.
Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative (FY04 $6.5 million, E&W Mark $9.0 million)
The Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative is a program to conduct R&D on how
to produce hydrogen using nuclear energy.
Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) (FY04 $67 million, E&W Mark $68
million)
The mission of the AFCI is to develop new ways to treat spent
nuclear fuel. One goal of the program is to inform a recommendation by
the Secretary of Energy by 2010 on whether the U.S. needs a second
nuclear waste repository in addition to Yucca Mountain.
Nuclear Power 2010 (FY04 $19 million, E&W Mark $5 million)
The Nuclear Power 2010 program is a joint government/industry cost-
shared effort to identify sites for new nuclear power plants, develop
advanced nuclear plant technologies, evaluate the business case for
building new nuclear power plants, and demonstrate untested regulatory
processes. These efforts are designed to pave the way for an industry
decision by the end of 2005 to order a new nuclear power plant which
would begin commercial operation early in the next decade.
Generation IV (FY04 $28 million, E&W Mark $40 million)
The goal of the Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems Initiative is
to address the fundamental research and development issues necessary to
establish the viability of a next-generation nuclear energy system. The
program is designed to improve safety, sustainability, cost-
effectiveness, and proliferation resistance.
7. Questions to the Witnesses
Questions for Mr. William Magwood, IV
Your testimony should address the Department of Energy's (DOE)
plans to reorganize the Idaho laboratory complex to form a new national
laboratory. Please describe the reasons for designating this newly
created laboratory as the lead laboratory for nuclear energy research
and development (R&D). Specifically, please focus your testimony on the
following questions:
1. What is the Department's view of the Report of the
Infrastructure Task Force of the Nuclear Energy Research
Advisory Committee, particularly its conclusion that, given the
lead laboratory status, funding at the Idaho Site is clearly
insufficient?
2. What role will Argonne National Laboratory and other
national laboratories with nuclear expertise play in nuclear
energy R&D after the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is
established?
3. The Department has indicated that INL will be a multi-
purpose laboratory, but the current strategic plan for the
Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory
emphasizes the laboratory's transition to a focus on nuclear-
related research. What specific programs do you envision
supporting at INL beyond nuclear- and environmental management-
related research?
4. The Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) has been described
both as a demonstration of commercial viability and as a
research testbed. What is the Department's view of the purpose
of the NGNP? To what extent is the design of the NGNP being
influenced by the requirements imposed by hydrogen production?
To what extent would INL be capable of world leadership in
nuclear energy R&D if the NGNP does not go forward?
Questions for Dr. Alan Waltar
In your testimony, please briefly outline the conclusions of the
Seven Lab Action Plan, Nuclear Energy: Power for the 21st Century.
Please also answer the following questions:
1. What should the U.S. goals be in the field of nuclear
power? How can the new Idaho National Laboratory best
contribute to those goals?
2. Are there gaps in the Department's present nuclear energy
research and development (R&D) portfolio? Are there current
research programs you would recommend discontinuing? If so,
please explain your recommended changes.
3. The Department is working in partnership with the nuclear
power industry to enable a new nuclear plant to be ordered and
licensed for deployment within the decade. Is the nuclear
energy R&D portfolio adequate to meet this goal? If not, how
could this be rectified?
4. The Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) has been described
both as a demonstration of commercial viability and as a
research testbed. What do you believe the purpose of the NGNP
should be? To what extent is the design of the NGNP being
influenced by the requirements imposed by hydrogen production?
To what extent would INL be capable of world leadership in
nuclear energy R&D if the NGNP does not go forward?
Questions for Dr. Robert Long
In your written testimony, please briefly describe the
recommendations made by the Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee
Infrastructure Task Force. Please also answer the following questions:
1. What role do you recommend that Argonne National Laboratory
and other national laboratories with nuclear expertise play in
nuclear energy R&D after the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is
established?
2. The Department has indicated that INL will be a multi-
purpose laboratory, but the current strategic plan for the
Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory
emphasizes the laboratory's transition to a focus on nuclear
related research. What specific programs should the Department
support at INL beyond nuclear and environmental management
related research?
3. The Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) has been described
both as a demonstration of commercial viability and as a
research testbed. What do you believe the purpose of the NGNP
should be? To what extent is the design of the NGNP being
influenced by the requirements imposed by hydrogen production?
To what extent would INL be capable of world leadership in
nuclear energy R&D if the NGNP does not go forward?
Questions for Dr. Andrew Klein
In your written testimony, please describe the work of the Nuclear
Energy Research Advisory Committee subcommittee that you chair, and any
preliminary recommendations you can make based on the work of the
subcommittee thus far. Please also answer the following questions:
1. What role do you recommend that Argonne National Laboratory
and other national laboratories with nuclear expertise play in
nuclear energy R&D after the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is
established?
2. The Department has indicated that INL will be a multi-
purpose laboratory, but the current strategic plan for the
Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory
emphasizes the laboratory's transition to a focus on nuclear-
related research. What specific programs should the Department
support at INL beyond nuclear- and environmental-management
related research?
3. The Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) has been described
both as a demonstration of commercial viability and as a
research testbed. What do you believe the purpose of the NGNP
should be? To what extent is the design of the NGNP being
influenced by the requirements imposed by hydrogen production?
To what extent would INL be capable of world leadership in
nuclear energy R&D if the NGNP does not go forward?
Chairman Biggert. This hearing will come to order. Good
morning and welcome, everyone.
Today's hearing is on the future of nuclear energy R&D and
the creation of Idaho National Laboratory. On August--or April
30, 2003, Secretary Abraham announced that the Department of
Energy would combine the research activities of the Idaho
National Engineering and Environmental Lab and Argonne National
Laboratory West to create a new lab, the Idaho National
Laboratory, or INL. Under the Department's plan, INL will be
the lead laboratory for DOE's nuclear energy R&D activities.
The Department hopes to establish INL as the leading center in
the world for national energy technology within 10 years.
I support the Department's designation of a leading
laboratory, but I do have serious concerns about how the
Department is going about creating this laboratory.
Specifically, I am concerned about the impact this decision may
have on existing nuclear R&D programs and facilities, including
those in Idaho, that have served the Nation well for decades. I
am also concerned that the Department's decision may sever one
of the last best teams of nuclear scientists at Argonne
National Laboratory-East and West. In doing so, the Department
could end up fracturing the laboratory that has been the
driving force behind the development of advanced nuclear
technology for almost 50 years. Time will tell, and much will
depend on who bids for and is awarded the contract to manage
this new lab.
As a lifelong resident of the State of Illinois, which gets
50 percent of its electricity from nuclear energy, I am a
strong supporter of nuclear energy, and that is why I am here
today to ask some tough questions about this new lab. I want to
make sure it enhances rather than detracts from what I believe
has been a 50-year success story, namely our nuclear energy R&D
program.
There is no denying that the new INL is coming into the
world with a lot of weight on its shoulders: the Department's
budget request with decreased funding for nuclear energy R&D
overall in fiscal year 2005. In fact, nuclear energy R&D at the
Idaho site itself would decrease by $6 million under the
Department's proposed budget. The DOE asserts that more funds
will become available for INL as the Idaho cleanup work is
completed over the next decade. But the Nuclear Energy Research
Advisory Committee, called NERAC for short, urged DOE not to
link INL funding to completion of the cleanup effort for two
reasons. First, many obstacles to the cleanup remain and could
cause it to go over schedule or over budget. And second, INL's
needs are too immediate to permit a budget strategy that ramps
up over time. The Idaho lab complex is burdened with a backlog
of needed maintenance work and facility upgrades. NERAC
estimates that getting the INL mission ready will require
immediate investments totally over $90 billion--I am sorry,
that is $90 million. I saw a few eyebrows raise right there.
And will require additional funding of several million dollars
each year thereafter.
The future of INL is, in part, linked to the Next
Generation Nuclear Power Plant, and we are asking a lot of this
$1 billion project that is described as research test bed as a
demonstration of an advanced nuclear design and as a
demonstration of commercial-scale hydrogen production. We may
be able to balance all of these elements, but only through
careful thought and planning.
The good news is that INL doesn't have to go at it alone.
The new INL will be the Department of Energy's lead lab for
nuclear energy R&D, but let us not forget that it will also be
a member of a team. We have a great deal of nuclear energy
expertise in residence at other national labs, including
Argonne, Oak Ridge, and Los Alamos. For the overall nuclear
energy R&D program to continue to be a success, its lead
laboratory must succeed, but not at the expense of the
program's other laboratories.
As we proceed today, we must keep these questions in mind:
``Are we doing everything we can to ensure the success of our
nuclear energy R&D program? And are we putting the resources of
all of our national laboratories to the best possible use?''
I believe nuclear energy is at a crossroads; the choices we
make today about our nuclear energy R&D investments may
determine whether or not nuclear power is a viable option for
the rest of the 21st century. It is important that we get this
right.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Biggert follows:]
Prepared Statement of Chairman Judy Biggert
The hearing will come to order.
Good morning, and welcome, everyone.
Today's hearing is on the future of nuclear energy R&D and the
creation of the Idaho National Laboratory. On April 30, 2003, Secretary
Abraham announced that the Department of Energy (DOE) would combine the
research activities of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental
Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory-West to create a new lab,
the Idaho National Laboratory, or INL.
Under the Department's plan, INL will be the lead laboratory for
DOE's nuclear energy R&D activities. The Department hopes to establish
INL as the leading center in the world for nuclear energy technology
within 10 years.
I support the Department's designation of a lead laboratory, but I
have serious concerns about how the Department is going about creating
this laboratory. Specifically, I am concerned about the impact this
decision may have on existing nuclear R&D programs and facilities,
including those in Idaho, that have served the Nation well for decades.
I also am concerned that the Department's decision may sever one of
the last, best teams of nuclear scientists at Argonne National
Laboratory, East and West. In doing so, the Department could well
fracture a laboratory that has been the driving force behind the
development of advanced nuclear technologies for almost 50 years. Time
will tell, and much will depend on who bids for and is awarded the
contract to manage this new lab.
As a life-long resident of the State of Illinois, which gets fifty
percent of its electricity from nuclear energy, I'm a strong supporter
of nuclear energy. And that's why I'm here today to ask some tough
questions about this new laboratory. I want to make sure it enhances
rather than detracts from what I believe has been a 50-year success
story, namely our nuclear energy R&D program.
There is no denying that the new INL is coming into the world with
a lot of weight on its shoulders. The Department's budget request would
decrease funding for nuclear energy R&D overall in FY05. In fact,
nuclear energy R&D at the Idaho site itself would decrease by $6
million under the Department's proposed budget.
The DOE asserts that more funds will become available for INL as
the Idaho cleanup work is completed over the next decade. But the
Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee, called NERAC for short,
urged DOE not to link INL funding to completion of the cleanup effort
for two reasons. First, there are many remaining obstacles to the
cleanup effort that could cause it to go over-schedule or over-budget.
Second, INL's needs are too immediate to permit a budget strategy
that ramps up over time. The Idaho lab complex is burdened with a
backlog of needed maintenance work and facility upgrades. NERAC
estimates that getting INL mission-ready will require immediate
investments totaling over $90 million, and will require additional
funding of several million dollars each year thereafter.
The future of INL is, in part, linked to the Next Generation
Nuclear Power Plant, or NGNP. We're asking a lot of this $1 billion
project. It's described as a research test-bed, as a demonstration of
an advanced reactor design, and as a demonstration of commercial-scale
hydrogen production. We may be able to balance all of these elements,
but only through careful thought and planning.
The good news is that INL doesn't have to go it alone. The new INL
will be the Department of Energy's lead lab for nuclear energy R&D, but
let's not forget that it will also be a member of a team. We have a
great deal of nuclear energy expertise in residence at other national
labs, including Argonne, Oak Ridge, and Los Alamos. For the overall
nuclear energy R&D program to continue to be a success, its lead
laboratory must succeed, but not at the expense of the program's other
laboratories.
As we proceed today, we must keep these questions in mind: Are we
doing everything we can to ensure the success of our nuclear energy R&D
program? And are we putting the resources at all our national
laboratories to the best possible use?
I believe nuclear energy is at a crossroads. The choices we make
today about our nuclear energy R&D investments may determine whether or
not nuclear power is a viable option for the rest of the 21st century.
It's important that we get this right.
Chairman Biggert. I will now turn to the Ranking Member of
the Energy Subcommittee for his opening statement.
Mr. Larson. Thank you, Madame Chair. And let me associate
myself with your remarks and acknowledge that today we are
addressing an issue of importance to a wide range of interests.
The Department of Energy has a vision for nuclear energy
research and the future of the Idaho site.
If all goes as planned by the Administration, we may see
significant changes, not only in Idaho, but throughout the
national laboratory complex. Understandably, labs such as Los
Alamos, Oak Ridge, and Argonne are very concerned about the
impacts in making the Idaho laboratory the flagship facility
for nuclear energy research. Idaho has a long history of
valuable nuclear research, but it is not the only site for this
work, and we should be careful in consolidating all of our
research into one place. One observer noted that this is
``analogous to closing down all university nuclear engineering
departments and consolidating them into a single university''.
It simply is not practical nor is it wise. Sources tell us that
there are a number of vital programs at other labs that the
Idaho lab is not equipped to handle. Upgrading facilities at
Idaho to accomplish--to accommodate this work would have costs
well above the projected budget. In these cases, it only makes
sense to leave such programs where they are.
We will be paying close attention to the Department as it
executes its plans for the Next Generation Power Reactor. If
production of hydrogen is such an important part of this
project and the President is serious about his vision for a
hydrogen economy, it would only make sense that we include
domestic hydrogen industries in the demonstration of these
technologies. This can be said for other components of the
project as well. Large projects such as this are too costly to
have the benefits fall into the hands of foreign companies.
While I have reservations, I am not opposed to the creation
of the Idaho National Laboratory, and I commend the
Department's efforts in making it a world-class facility. On
the surface, there is some wisdom in the idea of moving nuclear
energy research to a remote region of Idaho, but given the
limited budget for nuclear research at DOE, we are concerned
the Department will dip into resources of other labs to fund
work at Idaho instead of leveraging their key capabilities and
expertise. Labs should partner with other laboratories and
universities to make their vision for Idaho work. Research in
advanced nuclear power systems is beyond the scope of any one
laboratory. Idaho has a long history of research in nuclear
energy, but it is not the only site to conduct this research,
and nor should it be.
Thank you, Madame Chair, and I yield back the remainder of
my time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Larson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Representative John B. Larson
Thank you Madame Chair.
Today we are addressing an issue of importance to a wide range of
interests. The Department of Energy has a vision for nuclear energy
research and the future of the Idaho site. If all goes as planned by
the Administration, we may see significant changes not only in Idaho,
but throughout the national laboratory complex.
Understandably, labs such as Los Alamos, Oak Ridge and Argonne are
very concerned about the impacts of making the Idaho National
Laboratory the flagship facility for nuclear energy research.
Idaho has a long history of valuable nuclear research. But it is
not the only site for this work and we should be careful in
consolidating all of our research into one place. One observer said
that this is analogous to closing down all university nuclear
engineering departments and consolidating them at a single university.
It simply is not practical or wise.
Sources tell us that there are a number of vital programs at other
labs that the Idaho lab is not equipped to handle. Upgrading facilities
at Idaho to accommodate this work would have costs well above the
projected budget. In these cases, it only makes sense to leave such
programs where they are.
We will be paying close attention to the Department as it executes
its plans for the next generation power reactor. If production of
hydrogen is such an important part of this project, and the President
is serious about his vision for a hydrogen economy, it would only make
sense that we include domestic hydrogen industries in the demonstration
of these technologies.
This can be said for other components of the project, as well.
Large projects such as this are too costly to have the benefits fall
into the hands of foreign companies.
For the most part, I am not opposed to the creation of the Idaho
National Laboratory and I commend the Department's efforts in making it
a world class facility. On the surface, there is some wisdom in the
idea of moving nuclear energy research to a remote region of Idaho.
But, given the limited budget for nuclear research at DOE, we are
concerned that the Department will dip into resources of other labs to
fund work at Idaho, instead of leveraging their key capabilities and
expertise. The lab should partner with other laboratories and
universities to make their vision for Idaho work.
Research in advanced nuclear power systems is beyond the scope of
any one laboratory. Idaho has a long history of research in nuclear
energy. But it is not the only site to conduct this research, and nor
should it be.
Thank you, Madame Chair. I yield back the remainder of my time.
Chairman Biggert. Thank you, Mr. Larson. I would like, at
this time, to ask unanimous consent that all Members who wish
to do so have their opening statements entered into the record
and that all written testimony submitted by the witnesses be
placed in the record. Without objection, so ordered.
It is my pleasure to welcome our witnesses for today's
hearing and to introduce them to you. They are Mr. William D.
Magwood, IV, Director of the Office of Nuclear Energy Science
and Technology at the Department of Energy, and Dr. Alan
Waltar, Director of Nuclear Energy at the Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory and past president of the American Nuclear
Society. Welcome. Dr. Robert Long, President of Nuclear
Stewardship, LLC, a private consulting firm. Dr. Long chaired
the Infrastructure Task Force of the DOE Nuclear Energy
Research Advisory Committee, or NERAC, which evaluated the
status of the Idaho laboratory complex and recommended
improvements. And last but not least, Dr. Andrew Klein, head of
the Nuclear Engineering Department at Oregon State University.
Dr. Klein currently chairs the NERAC subcommittee charged with
determining the characteristics, capabilities, and attributes
of a world-class laboratory and making recommendations for
building INL into a world leader in nuclear energy technology.
I thank each of you for joining us today. And as the witnesses
know, spoken testimony will be limited to five minutes each,
after which the Members will have five minutes each to ask
questions.
And we will begin with Mr. Magwood.
STATEMENT OF MR. WILLIAM D. MAGWOOD, IV, DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE
OF NUCLEAR ENERGY, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, THE DEPARTMENT OF
ENERGY
Mr. Magwood. Thank you, Chairman.
Chairman, Mr. Larson, Members of the Subcommittee, I am
Bill Magwood. I am Director of DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy
Science and Technology, and it is a great pleasure to appear
before this subcommittee again to discuss our plans for nuclear
research and for the development of the Idaho National
Laboratory.
As outlined in the National Energy Policy, which was issued
shortly after President Bush took office, this Administration
is vitally interested in the continuing role of nuclear energy
in this country and in the expansion as an important component
of our energy resources. Over the last three years, we have
advanced the agenda for nuclear energy research and development
in several significant ways that reflect the focus and
commitment of our Department in this important energy resource.
Our efforts have gained momentum, and continue to do so, with
each passing week, and we are confident about the agenda that
we have established.
We have not done this alone. All of our programs are
characterized by a high degree of oversight and peer review
from independent sources. The Nuclear Energy Research Advisory
Committee, or NERAC, has eight active subcommittees that
interact with my office to pursue our nuclear energy agenda and
has made a very real and substantial difference in the
development of our programs. I am pleased to appear today with
two members of that body, Dr. Long and Dr. Klein, both of whom
have led important subcommittees, some of which you will hear
about today.
We have also worked hard to bring an international
characteristic to all of our programs. We established a
Generation IV International Forum, a collective of ten
countries working together to advance nuclear technology with
this in mind. That group, in coordination with NERAC, had led
the evaluation over 100 different nuclear energy concepts from
all over the world by over 100 scientists from all over the
world to determine the most promising technologies for the
future. After a complex, carefully managed two-year process,
the Generation IV International Forum concluded that six
concepts held the most promise for the future, and a number of
countries have agreed on a framework to allow the countries to
work together to develop these technologies.
For our part, we have already indicated in a report to
Congress last year that the Department of Energy has selected
one technology as its lead technology in Generation IV. This
technology is now known as the Next Generation Nuclear Power
Plant. The base concept of the Next Generation Nuclear Plant,
or NGNP, is that of a very high temperature, gas cooled reactor
system with an advanced high efficiency turbine generator and
an even more advanced thermal chemical hydrogen production
system. We have very high expectations for this technology.
Pursuant to this, the Department recently published a draft
strategy for proceeding with the construction of the NGNP pilot
plan. We are holding a public meeting tomorrow at the eight
headquarters to respond to questions about this proposed
strategy, and I invite you to have your staff attend that, and
we look forward to answering any questions they may have as
well. We have asked the U.S. private sector, which we have
asked to take a lead on this project, to submit comments on the
strategy by July 2. We will use this input to support the
consideration of a mission need analysis for this project under
the Department's highly disciplined project management process.
But let me be clear, DOE has not made a final decision in
constructing an NGNP at this point. However, should the
decision be made to proceed with the facility, it is our intent
that the new Idaho National Laboratory would play a central
role in the project by supporting all of the technical
evaluation and research and development needs for the project.
In doing so, the INL would attract many new talented scientists
and engineers, establish strong ties with industry, academia,
and the international community, and become involved in other
ways, which will set it on a path to establish it as a pre-
eminent nuclear energy research laboratory in the world in a
10-year period.
As Secretary Abraham has called the command center of a
revived nuclear technology education and research enterprise in
this country, the new lab will become a vital part to the
Department in realizing our vision for nuclear energy. As such,
it can not be the only location where vital nuclear energy
research is performed. We expect that, as a command center for
nuclear energy, the INL will form close and productive
relationships with other national laboratories, particularly
those where important, irreplaceable expertise and capabilities
exist today. We fully expect the labs, such as Argonne, Oak
Ridge, Los Alamos, and Sandia will remain important
contributors to the Department's nuclear energy R&D efforts. We
do not anticipate the consolidation of all programs into the
Idaho laboratory. What we do anticipate is that Idaho will be
at the leading edge of new programs that we develop.
For nuclear energy to have missions, we have asked NERAC to
evaluate the assets in Idaho and recommend to us the
improvements it believes we should make, not just in the
facilities and equipment, but also in less tangible areas, such
as personnel development and incentives to develop a laboratory
culture. We look forward to receiving their recommendations
later this year. In the interim, we continue to plan for the
maintenance of the existing facilities at INL and consider new
investments in infrastructure, and we have developed a 10-year
site plan to focus our efforts to assure that we have a long-
term planning basis.
In summary, we believe that by returning the Idaho lab to
its roots, we are creating a much-needed focal point for the
nuclear energy R&D program in this country. As demonstrated by
the stockpile stewardship program, the renewable energy
program, and others, a complex research program can benefit
from the contributions of many organizations, but at its core,
it needs a small number of institutions that are focused in
making that program a success. For nuclear technology, we
believe the Idaho lab is the right place to focus our efforts,
and that renewed focus will give a boost to nuclear energy R&D
across the country.
Thank you for holding this hearing, and thank you for the
opportunity to appear today, and I look forward to answering
any questions you have.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Magwood follows:]
Prepared Statement of William D. Magwood, IV
Chairman Biggert and Members of the Subcommittee, I am William D.
Magwood, IV, Director of the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and
Technology. It is a pleasure to appear here today to discuss our views
of the future of nuclear energy research and development and the
important role the new Idaho National Laboratory will play in meeting
our research objectives. As outlined in the National Energy Policy
issued shortly after President Bush took office, this Administration is
vitally interested in continuing the development of nuclear energy and
expanding its use in the U.S.
Over the last three years, we have advanced the agenda for nuclear
energy and nuclear research in several significant ways that reflect
the focus and commitment the Department has placed on this important
energy source. We have established strong cooperation with industry
through our Nuclear Power 2010 program, working with utilities to
examine the potential of ordering new nuclear power plants for
operation in the United States within the next few years. We have
developed new, important technology in the Advanced Fuel Cycle
Initiative, pointing the way toward a better, more proliferation-
resistant nuclear fuel cycle. We have established the Generation IV
International Forum, working with the world's advanced nuclear
technology nations to identify and develop the most promising next
generation nuclear energy technologies for the future.
Our nuclear energy research programs are highly integrated and
interdependent. Our Generation IV activities, for example, rely on
success in the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative to create the advanced
nuclear fuels for most of the six next-generation nuclear energy system
concepts. Our Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative is dependent upon the success
of the Generation IV effort to create the reactor technologies that can
supply the very high temperature heat needed to make hydrogen
production economic and practical on a commercial scale. This
integration can be difficult from a management perspective, but highly
beneficial from both a results and an efficiency standpoint. While each
program has its own goals and objectives, our success will be greatly
magnified when the products of each program are brought together at the
end.
All of our programs are characterized by a high degree of
independent oversight and peer review. The Nuclear Energy Research
Advisory Committee (NERAC) has eight active subcommittees interacting
with my Office to pursue our nuclear energy R&D goals. Under the
leadership of the Chair, former Deputy Secretary of Energy Bill Martin,
and the Vice Chair, former Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman John
Ahearne, NERAC is one of the most active, engaged, and committed
advisory bodies in existence and the time and effort the members of
this group have devoted to their advisory role has made a very real and
substantial difference in the development of our programs.
All of our programs benefit from a philosophy that to be
successful, the next generation of nuclear technologies must not be
used just in the United States, or just in Japan, or just in France--
but used internationally in a standardized fashion. We often consider
the aircraft industry to be a good model. Just as it would not be
economically viable to build one or two airliners in each country using
unique designs, it will not economically viable to do so with future
nuclear power plants. Instead, like the case of airliners, we must
benefit from coordinated worldwide efforts and acceptability of a few
technologies in many countries. In this way, the market for future
plants is large, as are the economies of manufacturing scale.
Because of this view, we have worked hard to bring an international
character to all of our programs. We established the Generation IV
International Forum, or GIF, with this in mind. That group, in
coordination with NERAC, led the evaluation of over 100 different
nuclear energy concepts by over 100 expert scientists and engineering
from over a dozen countries. After a complex, carefully managed two
year process, the GIF concluded that six technology concepts held the
most promise for the future and the GIF member countries agreed to
establish an international framework to allow all countries to work on
the technologies of greatest interest to them in direct partnership
with other member countries.
For our part, as we indicated in our report to Congress last year
on the U.S. Generation IV program, the Department of Energy has
selected one of the six technologies as its lead technology. This
technology is now known as the Next Generation Nuclear Plant, or NGNP.
The NGNP would be able to make both electricity and hydrogen at very
high levels of efficiency; would be deployable in modules that will
better fit the high competitive, deregulated market environment in the
United States; and would be extraordinarily safe, proliferation-
resistant, and waste-minimizing.
The base concept of the NGNP is that of a very-high temperature
gas-cooled reactor system coupled with an advanced, high-efficiency
turbine generator and even more advanced thermochemical hydrogen
production system. We have very high expectations for this technology.
As we indicated in our recent request for Expressions of Interest
(EOI), we are interested in the eventual deployment of commercial
plants that can generate electric power at a cost of less than 1.5
cents/kilowatt hour; produce hydrogen at a cost of less than $1.50/
gallon-gasoline equivalent; and cost less than $1000/kilowatt to
construct with a goal of $500/kilowatt.
If we are successful in creating such a technology, we will change
the game with respect to the energy and environment future of the
United States. We will not only assure a vibrant, long-term future for
nuclear energy that will allow the Nation to benefit from nuclear
energy's enviable environmental qualities, but we will expand its
advantages from electricity production to fueling the Nation's vast
transportation system. In doing so, we will enable the President's
vision, as articulated in his Hydrogen Fuel Initiative, to be realized
far earlier than many thought possible.
The Department is working with its international partners to define
the research and development activities that could enable an NGNP to be
demonstrated in pilot form before 2020. We have asked the U.S. private
sector to submit comments on the NGNP strategy by July 2 of this year,
as well as to indicate their potential interest in serving as the
Project Integrator.
As noted in the Request for Expressions of Interest, DOE has not
made a final decision to construct a NGNP facility. And, although it
might be reasonable to infer that should such a decision be made, the
NGNP would be located at INL, we have not made a final site selection,
nor have we secured the required out-year funding. However, the
Department intends that the INL would play a central role throughout
the NGNP effort. Should the decision be made to build an NGNP pilot
plant, it would be our preferred path to build the facility under a
cooperative arrangement with the private sector. We believe that such a
project should be, first and foremost, focused on the development of a
technology that can be deployed by the private sector sometime after
2020. Such a technology must be flexible, safe, reliable, and
consistent with the economic realities of the market (with or without
the advent of a ``hydrogen economy'').
Our EOI noted that one management and funding option the Department
is considering is to work with a Project Integrator to pursue this
technology. This entity would work closely with the INL to develop and
manage research and development plans. In doing so, the INL would
attract many new talented scientists and engineers; establish strong
ties with industry, academia, and the international community; and
evolve in other ways which will set it on the path to establish the
Nation's pre-eminent laboratory for nuclear energy research in 10
years.
This goal is the central objective we have set for the new M&O
contractor for the Idaho National Laboratory. The new contractor will
have the task of merging the lab operations of Argonne National
Laboratory-West and Idaho National Engineering and Environment
Laboratory to create a new, multi-program national laboratory that will
serve as what Secretary Abraham called the ``command center'' of a
revived nuclear technology, education, and research enterprise in this
country.
In this role, the new lab will become a vital partner to the
Department of Energy in realizing the vision for nuclear energy we have
been developing over the last several years. As such, it cannot be the
only location where vital nuclear energy research is performed. We
expect that as the ``command center'' for the nuclear energy program,
the INL will form close and productive relationships with other
national laboratories--particularly those where important,
irreplaceable expertise and capabilities exist today. In particular,
Argonne National Laboratory (with its unique expertise in reactor
analysis, reactor safety, physics and computer codes); Oak Ridge
National Laboratory (which has great expertise in materials and
chemical processes); Los Alamos National Laboratory (which has some the
Department's finest advanced nuclear fuel technology capabilities); and
Sandia National Laboratories (which has outstanding energy conversion,
systems engineering, and nonproliferation expertise) will all be
important contributors to all of the Department's major nuclear energy
R&D efforts. To facilitate this, DOE has established a program
management structure that includes National Technical Directors and
System Integrators, many of whom are based at DOE laboratories outside
of Idaho. This program management structure will help ensure that the
best technical talent is brought to bear on DOE's nuclear energy R&D
programs, no matter where that talent may reside.
The designation of the INL as the leader for nuclear R&D is
consistent with the lab's historic role as the focal point for the
development of commercial nuclear power in the world. The first usable
quantities of electricity produced by nuclear power occurred at what
was then known as the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho. The
first city lighted by nuclear power was Arco, Idaho, using power from a
reactor at this facility. Fifty-two reactors have been built and
operated in Idaho over the years, the largest concentration in the
world.
Beyond nuclear energy research, we envision the INL becoming a
multi-program laboratory, with a broad and varied portfolio of work. We
believe that a diverse scope of work activities would provide a sound
intellectual basis for the lab and help attract the wide range of
expert researchers and technologists from many disciplines that will be
needed to allow us to reach our ambitious nuclear energy goals. In
addition to its nuclear energy role, the request for proposals
indicates that the new INL M&O contractor will:
Consolidate at the INL the ability to fabricate, test
and assemble plutonium238 power systems needed for both
national security and space exploration;
Establish a Center for Advanced Energy Studies in
Idaho Falls, Idaho, in which the INL, Idaho and other regional
and national universities cooperate to conduct on-site
research, classroom instruction, technical conferences and
other events for a world-class academic and research
institution;
Be a lead science and technology provider in nuclear
nonproliferation and counter proliferation, and become the
Nation's leader in developing science-based, technical
solutions protecting the country's critical infrastructure; and
Research, develop and deploy technologies that
improve the efficiency, cost effectiveness and environmental
impacts of systems that generate, transmit, distribute and
store electricity and fuels.
For the nuclear energy and other missions, we have asked the
Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee to evaluate the assets in
Idaho and to recommend to us improvements it believes we should make
not just in facilities and equipment, but also in less tangible areas,
such as personnel development and incentives and laboratory culture. We
look forward to receiving their recommendations later this year. In the
interim, we continue to plan for the maintenance of the existing
facilities at INL and consider new investments in the infrastructure.
In summary, we believe that by returning the Idaho lab to its
roots, we are creating a much-needed focal point for the nuclear energy
R&D program in this country. As demonstrated by the stockpile
stewardship program, the renewable energy program, and others, a large
research program can benefit from the contributions of many
organizations, but at its core needs a small number of institutions
that are focused on making that program a success. We believe that the
Idaho lab is the right place for this focus to occur, and that a
renewed focus will give a boost to nuclear energy R&D across the U.S.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today, and I
look forward to answering any questions you may have.
Biography for William D. Magwood, IV
William D. Magwood, IV is the Director of the Office of Nuclear
Energy, Science and Technology in the U.S. Department of Energy. He was
appointed to this position on November 8, 1998.
As the Director of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology, Mr.
Magwood is the senior nuclear technology official in the United States
Government and the senior manager for all of the Office's programs.
Under Mr. Magwood's leadership, the Office of Nuclear Energy, Science
and Technology has led the Nation in a new consideration of nuclear
technology as a means to address difficult problems facing the Nation
in the 21st Century.
Mr. Magwood is leading the Department's Nuclear Power 2010
initiative, aimed at building new nuclear plants in the U.S. by 2010 as
a key to long-term energy security. He is also leading the Generation
IV initiative, working closely with the Generation IV International
Forum--an international collective of 10 leading nations and the
European Union's Euratom--dedicated to development of next generation
advanced nuclear energy technologies.
Under the direction of Mr. Magwood, the office has reasserted a
leading role for the United States in the international discussion
regarding the future use of nuclear power technology to generate secure
supplies of energy without emitting air pollutants that can damage the
environment, both regionally and globally. His contributions to the
advancement of nuclear technology have been recognized internationally;
in 2003, he was elected Chairman of both the Generation IV
International Forum and the Paris-based OECD Steering Committee on
Nuclear Energy.
Prior to assuming his current position, Mr. Magwood served as the
Associate Director for Technology and Program Planning in the Office of
Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology for four years. He also served
as the Executive Secretary of the interagency Highly Enriched Uranium
Oversight Committee.
From 1984-1994, Mr. Magwood held technology management positions
with two energy-related organizations. He managed electric utility
research and nuclear policy programs at the Edison Electric Institute,
Washington, DC; and he was a scientist at Westinghouse Electric
Corporation, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he analyzed radiological
and hazardous waste disposal, treatment, and handling systems, and
provided technical support to nuclear fuel marketing efforts.
Mr. Magwood holds a B.S. degree in Physics, and a B.A. degree in
English from Carnegie-Mellon University. He also holds an M.F.A. degree
from the University of Pittsburgh.
Chairman Biggert. Thank you very much.
Dr. Waltar, you are recognized for five minutes. If you--I
think your mic is not on.
Dr. Waltar. All right.
Chairman Biggert. Yeah. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF DR. ALAN E. WALTAR, DIRECTOR OF NUCLEAR ENERGY,
PACIFIC NORTHWEST NATIONAL LABORATORY
Dr. Waltar. Well, my name is Alan Waltar. I am Director of
Nuclear Energy at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and an
employee of Batelle, which operates PNNL for the Department of
Energy. I mention this up front, because Batelle is leading a
team to bid on the INL contract, however, my testimony is based
almost exclusively on my nearly four years--four decades of
activity in the nuclear profession, largely uncoupled with
Batelle. And further, I am not a member of the Batelle team
working on the bid proposal. Rather, I come to you having
formerly served as professor and Head of the Department of
Nuclear Engineering in Texas A&M, and prior to that, 25 years
with Westinghouse Hanford Company in roles associated with
advanced reactor design and operation. As you mention, I also
had the privilege of serving as President of the American
Nuclear Society, an experience that allowed me to become aware
of the vital global contributions that nuclear energy, when
properly developed and managed, can make to the advancement of
a civilization.
Because of time constraints, I plan to stress in my oral
presentation the major driving forces that justify, in my mind,
the creation of the new Idaho National Laboratory, and I have
included responses to the questions in the written testimony.
Access to abundant and affordable supplies of energy is
crucial to development, and is the driving force behind our
economy and our national security. Now given this reality, when
a large and growing portion of our energy supply is embedded in
unstable regions of the world, a monumental price must be paid,
monetarily, politically, and yes, even militarily. Even more
sobering, nations without access to adequate energy supplies
remain chronically underdeveloped, thereby providing the
breeding grounds for terrorism to fester and grow in
retaliation to the wealthy of the world. Finally, there is
mounting evidence that in our quest for additional energy
supplies we need to significantly reduce the emission of
greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.
So in response to this situation, I believe the United
States must: number one, drastically reduce its dependence on
foreign oil, particularly the Middle East; two, develop
domestic energy sources capable of sustainable development that
are consistent with environmental stewardship; and three, work
to substantially reduce the stark differences in quality of
life among the peoples of the world.
In my judgment, the only source of energy capable of
credibly responding to the situation, in the time frame we
have, is nuclear energy. True, essentially all sources of
energy will be needed, but it is only wishful thinking to
assume that the growth in our longer-term worldwide energy
requirements can be provided by a combination of conservation,
fossil fuels, and renewables. It simply can not be done.
It is within this context that I welcome the potential for
adopting a national energy policy that embraces new major
commitment to the development of nuclear energy. I am likewise
pleased that the Department of Energy has designated the new
Idaho National Laboratory to be the focal point for advanced
reactor and fuel cycle development. This is the site where over
50 new reactor concepts were built and tested. These
developments provide a signal that our Nation recognizes the
steps necessary to provide the global leadership needed to
enable nuclear technology to play the role that only it can
play.
However, it is also my judgment that this new commitment
can succeed only if the following support is provided. Number
one, a substantial increase in sustained funding. Benefits to
be derived from a robust commitment to advanced nuclear science
and engineering, including the Next Generation Nuclear Power
Plant as a central focus, are enormous. The higher efficiencies
projected from this reactor for both the production of
electricity and hydrogen, a key new energy carrier to replace
petroleum transportation, are essential components of a
successful energy policy. Attaining a capability where advanced
nuclear science is balanced with other energy sources justifies
an annual commitment in the range of $300 million to $500
million over the next few years, as noted in the April 2003 six
laboratory group plan entitled ``Nuclear Energy: Power for the
21st Century.'' And that is attached to my written testimony.
Two, whereas the focus of the project should be at INL, I
would recommend that full advantage be taken of the six
laboratory directors' report, which represents a solid
commitment from the directors of key national laboratories to
fully integrate the technical resources, that is the staff and
facilities, required to assure success in restoring U.S.
leadership in nuclear technologies. These six labs, which have
been expanded to seven, represent the core of our government-
owned nuclear capabilities currently existing in our Nation.
These laboratories, partnered with private industry and the
U.S. academic community, provide enormous potential for
success.
And three, by combining the two complementary capabilities
of INL and Argonne West into one integrated laboratory with a
clear charter and the sustained support, a truly world-class
national laboratory can be created, capable of attracting both
onsite talent and engaging the talent remaining at the other
national laboratories, academic institutions, and private
industry to fully integrate the programs needed to assure the
U.S. with the energy source so vital to our future.
By integrating the current Gen-IV, Advanced Fuel Cycle
Initiative, and Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative into a coherent
effort focused at INL but utilizing the best talent the Nation
has to offer, the U.S. can, indeed, lead the world in
developing the next generation of nuclear power plants,
including the fuel cycles necessary to minimize reactor waste.
And finally, as a former educator, I wish to stress how
important it is for our Nation to build new nuclear facilities
and support new nuclear research programs to attract and employ
the best students that our universities can supply in the
nuclear discipline. A combination of new, exciting projects,
along with direct university support, is vital in ensuring an
adequate supply of next generation, well-educated professionals
in this important field.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Waltar follows:]
Prepared Statement of Alan E. Waltar
Madame Chairman and distinguished Members,
My name is Alan Waltar. I am Director of Nuclear Energy at the
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and an employee of Battelle,
which operates PNNL for the Department of Energy. I mention this up
front, since Battelle is leading a team to bid on the new INL contract.
However my testimony is based almost exclusively on my nearly four
decades of activity in the nuclear profession, largely uncoupled with
Battelle. Further, I am not a member of the Battelle team working on
the INL bid proposal.
I come to you having formerly served as Professor and Head,
Department of Nuclear Engineering, Texas A&M University, and prior to
that some 25 years with Westinghouse Hanford Company in a variety of
scientific and management roles associated with advanced nuclear
reactor design and operation. I also had the privilege of serving as
President of the American Nuclear Society, an experience that has
allowed me to become aware of the vital global contributions that
nuclear energy, properly developed and managed, can make to the
advancement of civilization.
Because of time constraints, I plan to stress in my oral
presentation the major driving forces that justify the creation of the
new Idaho National Laboratory. I have included responses to specific
questions in the attached written testimony.
Access to abundant and affordable supplies of energy is crucial to
development and it is the driving force behind our economy and our
national security system. Given this reality, when a large and growing
portion of our energy supply is embedded in unstable regions of the
world, a monumental price must be paid--monetarily, politically, and
even militarily. Even more sobering, nations without access to adequate
energy supplies remain chronically underdeveloped--thereby providing
the breeding grounds for terrorism to fester and grow in retaliation to
the wealthy of the world. Finally, there is mounting evidence that in
our quest for additional energy supplies we need to significantly
reduce the emission of greenhouse gases that contribute to global
warming.
In response to this situation, I believe the United States must:
1. Drastically reduce its dependence on foreign oil
(particularly from the Middle East);
2. Develop domestic energy supplies capable of sustainable
development that are consistent with environmental stewardship;
and
3. Work to substantially reduce the stark differences in
quality of life among the peoples of the world.
In my judgment, the only source of energy capable of credibly
responding to this situation in the timeframe we have available is
nuclear energy. True, essentially ALL sources of energy will be needed.
But it is only wishful thinking to assume that the growth in our
longer-term, world-wide energy requirements can be provided by a
combination of conservation, fossil fuels, and renewables. It simply
cannot be done.
If we as a nation do nothing to advance the safety, economy, and
proliferation protection for the next generation of nuclear reactors,
we will miss a great opportunity to ensure a viable future of global
nuclear energy deployment. As a consequence, we will leave our economy
and environment hostage to increasing fluctuations and the unavoidable
degradation that comes with relying so heavily on a fossil fuel future.
It is within this context that I welcome the potential for adopting
a national energy policy that embraces a major new commitment to the
development of nuclear energy. I am likewise pleased that the
Department of Energy has designated the new Idaho National Laboratory
to be the focal point for advanced reactor and fuel cycle development--
the site where over 50 new reactor concepts were built and tested.
These developments provide a signal that our nation recognizes the
steps necessary to provide the global leadership needed to enable
nuclear technology to play the role that only it can play.
However, it is also my judgment that this new commitment can
succeed only if the following support is provided:
1. A substantial increase in sustained funding. The benefits
to be derived from a robust commitment to advanced nuclear
science and engineering, including the Next Generation Nuclear
Plant (NGNP) as a central focus, are enormous. The higher
efficiencies projected from this reactor for the production of
both electricity and hydrogen (a key new energy carrier to
replace petroleum for transportation), are essential components
of a successful energy policy. Attaining a capability where
advanced nuclear science is balanced with other energy sources
justifies an annual commitment in the range of $300M to $500M
over the next few years, as noted by the April 2003 Six
Laboratory Group plan ``Nuclear Energy: Power for the 21st
Century'' (attached).
2. Whereas the focus of the project should be at INL, I would
recommend that full advantage be taken of the ``Six Laboratory
Directors' Report,'' which represents a solid commitment from
the directors of key national laboratories to fully integrate
the technical resources (staff and facilities) required to
assure success in restoring U.S. leadership in nuclear
technology. These six labs, now expanded to seven, (including
Argonne National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Sandia National
Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory, and the current Idaho Nuclear Engineering
and Environmental Laboratory) represent the core of government-
owned nuclear capabilities currently existing in our nation.
These laboratories, partnered with private industry and the
U.S. academic community, provide enormous potential for
success.
3. By combining the two complementary capabilities of INEEL
and ANL-W into one integrated laboratory, with a clear charter
and sustained support, a truly ``World Class'' national
laboratory can be created--capable of attracting both on-site
talent and engaging the talent remaining at other national
laboratories, academic institutions, and private industry to
fully integrate the program needed to assure the U.S. with the
energy source so vital to our future. By integrating the
current Generation IV, Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative, and
Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative programs into a coherent effort,
focused at INL but utilizing the best talent the Nation has to
offer, the U.S. can, indeed, lead the world in developing the
next generation nuclear power plants, including the fuel cycles
necessary to minimize reactor waste.
4. As a former educator, I wish to stress how important it is
for our nation to build new nuclear facilities and support new
nuclear research programs to attract and employ the best
students that our universities can supply in the nuclear
discipline. A combination of new, exciting projects, along with
direct university support, is vital in ensuring an adequate
supply of next generation, well educated professionals in this
important field.
Now to the specific questions posed:
1. What should the U.S. goals be in the field of nuclear power? How
can the new Idaho National Laboratory best contribute to those goals?
Response: I believe the testimony written above provides the major
part of my answer. As a target, I believe an aggressive goal would be
for half of the electricity produced in the U.S. in the year 2050 to be
supplied by nuclear energy and as much as 25 percent of the U.S.
transportation fuels supplied by nuclear-generated hydrogen by 2050.
These are extremely ambitious goals, but I believe we should strive
hard to meet them. A strong Idaho National Laboratory, properly staffed
and funded, is essential to providing the leadership necessary to allow
these ambitious but important goals to be met.
2. Are there gaps in the Department's present nuclear energy research
and development (R&D) portfolio? Are there current research programs
you would recommend discontinuing? If so, please explain your
recommended changes.
Response: I believe the current framework is satisfactory. The
problem is that the funding is so anemic that very little actual
progress is possible. One of the great tragedies is the continuing
erosion of the national nuclear infrastructure. Prime examples include
the shutdown and decommissioning of the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II
(EBR-II) and the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF), the newest reactor in
the DOE complex. With the combined demand for transmutation of
objectionable isotopes (to extend the lifetime of Yucca Mountain), and
the longer-term needs to extract considerably more energy from uranium,
a new fast spectrum reactor will have to be built--at a cost of at
least $2 billion. Losses of this nature cannot, in my judgment,
continue if the U.S. is serious about its commitment to nuclear power.
I also believe that such losses provide an unacceptable trend in
reducing the capacity of our nation to produce isotopes for medical,
agricultural, and industrial purposes. Over 90 percent of the life-
saving medical isotopes currently used in the United States come from
abroad.
3. The Department is working in partnership with the nuclear power
industry to enable a new nuclear plant to be ordered and licensed for
deployment within the decade. Is the nuclear energy R&D portfolio
adequate to meet this goal? If not, how could this be rectified?
Response: The current R&D program is probably adequate to support
the 2010 new commercial nuclear initiative. What is needed are
sufficient federal incentives to overcome the risks that any utility
(or utility consortium) would have to bear in constructing a new
plant--particularly if the plant were to be located in an unregulated
market. The utilities MUST have federal incentives or some type of
guaranteed return in order to reduce the financial risks to commercial
acceptability for the first new plant order. Incentives could include a
carbon tax credit, a guarantee for the price of electricity for a time
long enough to amortize the cost of construction, or other ways to
allow the private sector to step up to the plate.
4. The Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) has been described both as
a demonstration of commercial viability and as a research test bed.
What is your view of the purpose of the NGNP? To what extent is the
design of the NGNP being influenced by the requirements imposed by
hydrogen production? To what extent will INL be capable of world
leadership in nuclear energy R&D if the Next Generation Nuclear Plant
(NGNP) does not go forward?
Response: I believe the principal purpose of the NGNP is to serve
as an advanced testbed to demonstrate high temperature operation (both
for higher efficiency electricity production and for the production of
hydrogen). However, requesting private participation in designing and
building the plant represents a first and important step to inject
strong commercial potential for the plant. Certainly the projection of
hydrogen is a strong driving force for the particular design underway--
and this is important, since our nation MUST find a way to drastically
reduce the need for oil, and hydrogen represents a very distinct
alternative energy carrier. But if the NGNP is not funded and built,
the INL will not be able to serve as a world class laboratory. It
simply will not be able to draw the talent necessary to achieve such
distinction.
Thank you very much.
Biography for Alan E. Waltar
Dr. Alan Waltar is Director of the Nuclear Energy Program at the
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He joined the Laboratory July 1,
2002 after serving as Professor and Head of the Nuclear Engineering
Department at Texas A&M University (now the largest nuclear program in
the Nation).
Highly respected by the international nuclear community, Dr. Waltar
is a fellow and past president of the American Nuclear Society and a
member of the International Nuclear Energy Academy. He has served as a
consultant to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Energy Northwest,
Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Department of Energy. Dr.
Waltar chaired the 1998 Gordon Research Conference on Nuclear Waste and
Energy.
Before moving to Texas in 1998, Dr. Waltar spent nearly 25 years
with Westinghouse Hanford Company. His work on projects such as the
regulatory approval of and subsequent safety and fuels testing in the
Fast Flux Test Facility earned him a reputation as a leader in nuclear
safety and technology. Dr. Waltar has authored two books, as well as
more than 70 open literature publications, and is in demand as a
speaker on nuclear energy and technology.
Dr. Waltar holds a doctorate in engineering science from the
University of California, Berkeley, and a Master's degree in Nuclear
Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned
his Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of
Washington.
Chairman Biggert. Thank you very much, Dr. Waltar.
Dr. Long, you are recognized for five minutes. Could you
make sure that your microphone is on?
STATEMENT OF DR. ROBERT L. LONG, NUCLEAR STEWARDSHIP, LLC
Dr. Long. I am a Ph.D. Nuclear Engineer with over 45 years
of experience as a researcher, academic, and nuclear utility
company executive.
In 2002 and 2003, I served as chair of the NERAC
Infrastructure Task Force that was asked to advise the
Department of Energy concerning the maintenance, upgrade, and
reconstruction needs of the Idaho National Laboratory, actually
INEEL and ANL West at that point in time. The Infrastructure
Task Force was made up of the following members: myself, as
Chair; Dr. Mike Corradini, Chair of Nuclear Engineering at the
University of Wisconsin in Madison; Dr. Jose Cortez, Chair of
Physics and Geology at the University of Texas, Pan-American;
Dr. Warren Miller, Deputy Director, retired, from Los Alamos
National Lab; and Dr. Allen Sessoms, President of Delaware
State University.
The task force reviewed extensive materials from DOE, the
INEEL, and the ANL West, and on November 6 through 8, 2002, we
visited the Idaho site, received briefings and tours of the
facilities. The task force report was submitted to the DOE on
January 16, 2003, accepted by NERAC at their meeting in
November of 2003, and formally transmitted to the Secretary of
Energy in May 2004. That report included an overview of the
Idaho site and facilities, including more detailed comments on
key facilities. At the time of the task force effort, it was
not known that INEEL and ANL West were to be combined into a
new entity to be designated as Idaho National Laboratory.
Members of the task force fully endorsed that decision to
combine the laboratories under a single management structure.
Our primary conclusions and recommendations are included in
my written testimony. I will highlight just a few.
The task force believes that it is significantly important
for DOE to have designated a lead laboratory for nuclear energy
research and development. For the Administration to go forward
with nuclear energy beyond 2010, the lead lab site at Idaho
requires an immediate and significant increase in funding to
just, for example, clean up maintenance backlog and make key
mission--key facilities mission ready. University participation
by faculty and students should be a basic element of any
nuclear energy beyond 2010 R&D. And certainly to optimize the
use of facilities and staff resources, facilities beyond the
Idaho site, but in the U.S., that is the other national
laboratories and international sites in the Gen-IV partner
countries, should be integrated into the nuclear energy R&D
plans. Given the designation of INL as the lead nuclear energy
R&D laboratory, an external review process for laboratory
activity should be established, independent of NERAC, I think,
and far more active than NERAC in this particular area. There
should be broad representation of stakeholders, universities,
other laboratories, international partners, and other
interested groups.
The Subcommittee asked me to address three questions. I
will focus on just two. The others are addressed in my written
testimony.
The first was: ``What role do you recommend that ANL and
other national labs play in nuclear energy R&D?'' Given the
wide range of nuclear energy R&D endeavors, active and careful
coordination will be required with other DOE laboratories and
universities that are providing leadership as well as crucial
research support. It is essential that DOE and the new INL
contractor effectively integrate into the nuclear energy R&D
mission the facilities and staff of universities, international
partners, and other national laboratories. It is clear that DOE
Office of Science and NNSA-funded laboratories are engaged in
significant nuclear energy R&D activities. Strong direction
from the Secretary of Energy will be needed to ensure
appropriate allocation of resources across this wide spectrum
of activities.
One of the questions, in part, asked: ``To what extent will
INL be capable of world leadership in nuclear energy R&D if the
Next Generation Nuclear Plant does not go forward?'' One of the
characteristics common to all--to many, but not all, world-
class laboratories is the presence onsite of a user facility.
Once up and operating, the NGNP, I believe, would not be seen
as a user facility. However, there are other research
facilities that could be pursued in the event that NGNP does
not go forward. An example might be becoming the center of
excellence for the facilities needed to lead the Advanced Fuel
Cycle Initiative. Thus I believe that INL will be capable of
world leadership in nuclear energy R&D whether or not the NGNP
goes forward.
Finally, the key to becoming a world-class laboratory is
the presence of an underlying, long-term commitment to
excellence and assured funding of both facilities and human
resources. At a time when our national resources are severely
challenged, I believe that DOE and OMB will need to make major
changes in the allocation of DOE resources to fund the
development of a world-class nuclear energy R&D laboratory at
Idaho.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Long follows:]
Prepared Statement of Robert L. Long
My name is Robert L. Long. I am a Ph.D. Nuclear Engineer with over
45 years experience as a researcher, academic and nuclear utility
company executive. I am a charter member of the U.S. DOE Nuclear Energy
Research Advisory Committee (NERAC). In 2002-2003 I served as Chair of
the Infrastructure Task Force (ITF) that was asked to advise the
Department of Energy concerning the maintenance, upgrade and new
construction needs of the Idaho National Energy and Environmental
Laboratory (INEEL), including Argonne National Laboratory-West (ANL-W),
as DOE's lead nuclear energy laboratory. The Infrastructure Task Force
(ITF) was made up of the following members:
Robert L. Long, ITF Chair, Owner, Nuclear Stewardship, LLC
Michael L. Corradini, Chair, Nuclear Engineering, University
of Wisconsin-Madison
Jose L.M. Cortez, Chair, Physics and Geology, University of
Texas Pan American
Warren F. Miller, Jr., Deputy Director (retired), Los Alamos
National Laboratory
Allen L. Sessoms, President, University of Delaware
After receiving extensive written materials from DOE, the INEEL and
ANL-W, on November 6-8, 2002 the ITF visited the Idaho site and
received briefings and tours of the facilities. After ITF review, INEEL
and ANL-W provided updated facility descriptions that were used in the
preparation of the ITF Report. On January 7-8, 2003 the ITF met in
Albuquerque, NM to complete their Report which was then submitted to
the DOE on January 16, 2003. The Report was accepted by NERAC at their
meeting in November 2003 and formally transmitted to the Secretary of
Energy in May 2004.
The Task Force Report includes an overview of the Idaho site and
facilities, including more detailed comments on a few key facilities.
Another section discusses a number of human resource and staff issues.
At the time of the Task Force effort it was not known that INEEL and
ANL-W were to be combined into a new entity to be designated as Idaho
Nuclear Laboratory. So, the Report includes a discussion of the
relationships and memoranda of understanding and agreement between the
two laboratories. Members of the Task Force fully endorse the decision
to combine the laboratories under a single management structure. While
there was not time to examine the roles of universities and other DOE
laboratories in the nuclear energy R&D missions of DOE, the Task force
devoted a section of the Report to this important topic.
The primary conclusions reached by the ITF are:
It is significant and important for DOE to have
designated a lead laboratory for nuclear energy research and
development.
The funding at the Idaho site, given the lead-lab
status is clearly insufficient.
If Idaho site facilities are to be used for the
proposed missions (e.g., Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative,
Generation IV Reactor R&D and other nuclear energy work beyond
2010) resources must be provided at appropriate levels.
Where appropriate resources have been made available,
world-class facilities (e.g., Advanced Test Reactor, Fuel Cycle
Facility) exist and are supported by top-notch staff and
innovative programs.
Conversely there are certain facilities (e.g., Fuel
Processing Facility) that have lost their missions and for
which significant maintenance challenges exist. These
facilities should be abandoned.
INEEL is urged to develop a facilities consolidation
plan, once the NE technical mission is better defined. Note:
INEEL has issued a Ten-Year Site Plan that is now available.
The most important recommendations of the ITF are:
Given events since the National Energy Strategy was
issued, the federal commitment to nuclear energy needs to be
restated and reinforced by the White House and other senior
administration officials.
For the Administration to go forward with ``nuclear
energy beyond 2010'' the lead lab site at Idaho requires an
immediate and significant increase in funding to, e.g., clear
up maintenance backlog and make key facilities mission ready.
University participation (faculty and students)
should be a basic element of ``nuclear energy beyond 2010''
R&D.
Some facilities should be shut down or not considered
for further development. This includes the uncompleted Fuel
Processing Facility. There may be others such as the Flourinel
Dissolution Process Cell (FDP).
New facilities will probably be needed for the
purposes of ``nuclear energy beyond 2010.'' This may include a
source of fast neutrons, among others. It is recommended that a
specific study be conducted to determine the need for steady
and transient fast neutron facilities in the U.S. This study
should consider accessibility of existing support facilities.
To optimize the use of facilities and staff
resources, facilities beyond the Idaho site, but in the U.S.
(e.g., ANL-E, Oak Ridge, and Savannah River), and international
sites in the Gen IV partner countries should be integrated into
nuclear energy R&D plans.
Given the designation of INL as the lead nuclear
energy R&D laboratory, an external review process for
laboratory activities should be established. There should be
broad representation of stakeholders from universities, other
laboratories, international partners, and others.
The Energy Subcommittee asked that the following questions be
addressed:
1. What role do you recommend that Argonne National Laboratory and
other national laboratories with nuclear expertise play in nuclear
energy R&D after the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is established?
The DOE Office of Nuclear Energy has aggressively expanded its
research and development missions to encompass a wide range of topics,
such as:
Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (Series 1 and Series
2),
Generation IV Roadmap and associated Advanced Reactor
Design,
Nuclear Energy Research Initiative (NERI and INERI)
for basic studies,
These initiatives along with service to NASA and the Navy in
nuclear energy activities encompass what might be called ``Nuclear
Energy Beyond 2010.''
Such a wide range of endeavors requires active and careful
coordination with other DOE laboratories and universities that are
providing leadership as well as crucial research support. It is
essential that DOE and the new INL contractor effectively integrate
into the NE R&D mission the facilities and staff of universities,
international partners, and other national laboratories, e.g., ORNL,
ANL-East, Savannah River, and Hanford. It is clear that DOE Office of
Science and NNSA funded laboratories are engaged in significant nuclear
energy R&D activities. Strong direction from the Secretary of Energy
will be needed to ensure appropriate allocation of resources across
this wide spectrum of nuclear energy R&D activities.
Given the assignment of INL as the lead nuclear energy R&D
laboratory the DOE should move quickly to establish an external review
process for laboratory activities to assist in strategic planning and
missions coordination.
2. The Department has indicated that INL will be a multi-purpose
laboratory, but the current strategic plan for the Idaho National
Engineering and Environmental Laboratory emphasizes the laboratory's
transition to a focus on nuclear related research. What specific
programs should the Department support at INL beyond nuclear and
environmental management related research?
NERAC has another subcommittee, of which I am a member, that is
looking at characteristics of world class laboratories and what will be
needed to have INL reach world class level over the next ten years. One
issue is whether INL should be a multi-purpose laboratory or be singly
focused on nuclear energy R&D. For example, we have asked whether the
Homeland Security mission will detract from the ability to become world
class in nuclear energy R&D. The Subcommittee has raised an important
question. I will need further discussions with my NERAC colleagues
before I will feel competent to identify specific programs that should
be supported beyond nuclear and environmental management related
research.
3. The Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) has been described both as
a demonstration of commercial viability and as a research test bed.
What is your view of the purpose of the NGNP? To what extent is the
design of the NGNP being influenced by the requirements imposed by
hydrogen production? To what extent will INL be capable of world
leadership in nuclear energy R&D if the Next Generation Nuclear Plant
(NGNP) does not go forward?
I believe that the NGNP is a needed step in demonstrating the
capability to economically produce hydrogen as an alternative to the
burning of fossil fuels. The design of the NGNP is driven by the
requirements imposed by hydrogen production, that is, the need for
substantially higher temperatures than those available from the current
generation of light water reactors. The higher temperatures will also
increase the efficiency of electrical generation. The R&D needed to
bring the NGNP to fruition will be demanding and should attract world
class staff to be involved in the project.
One of the characteristics common to many, but not all, of the
world class laboratories that our NERAC subcommittee members have
visited is the presence on site of a user facility. Once up and
operating the NGNP would not be seen as a user facility. There are
other research facilities that could be pursued in the event the NGNP
does not go forward, e.g., sources of steady state and transient fast
spectrum neutrons. Another might be becoming the center of excellence
for the facilities needed to lead the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative.
Thus, I believe that INL will be capable of world leadership in
nuclear energy R&D whether or not the NGNP goes forward.
A commitment to substantial long-term funding. In every discussion
and every reference reviewed by the current subcommittee, the key to
becoming a world class laboratory is the presence of an underlying
long-term commitment to excellence and assured funding of both facility
and human resources. DOE has taken a step in that direction by
specifying that the new contactor for INL will have a ten-year contract
term, conditioned on satisfactory performance. At a time when our
national resources are severely challenged, I believe that DOE and OMB
will need to make major changes in the allocation of DOE resources to
fund the development of a world class nuclear energy R&D laboratory at
INL.
Biography for Robert L. Long
Dr. Robert L. Long is owner and sole member of Nuclear Stewardship,
LLC providing consulting services in nuclear and industrial health and
safety, quality assurance, management and leadership. At the end of
1996 he retired from 20 years service in the nuclear power industry,
serving as a vice president for 15 of those years. His responsibilities
included human resources and technical support services in training,
nuclear safety assessment, quality assurance, environmental affairs,
licensing and regulatory affairs, radiological safety, emergency
preparedness, and construction and maintenance. Joining General Public
Utilities (GPU) in 1978, he was actively involved in the response and
recovery from the Three Mile Island-2 accident and the restart of TMI-
1. Before joining GPU, he was Professor and Chair of Chemical and
Nuclear Engineering at the University of New Mexico. In a career
spanning 45 years he has served on numerous advisory and review
committees for the Electric Power Research Institute, Nuclear Energy
Institute, Edison Electric Institute, Accreditation Board for
Engineering and Technology, Institute of Nuclear Power Operations,
National Science Foundation, American Nuclear Society, National Academy
of Sciences, universities, Department of Energy (DOE) and DOE
contractor laboratories. He is a charter member of the DOE Nuclear
Energy Research Advisory Committee and is serving in his third two-year
term. Dr. Long holds M.S.Engr. and Ph.D. degrees in Nuclear Engineering
from Purdue University. He is a Fellow and Past President (1991-92) of
the American Nuclear Society. In 1993 he was named a Distinguished
Engineering Alumnus of Purdue University.
Chairman Biggert. Thank you very much, Dr. Long.
Dr. Klein, you are recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF DR. ANDREW C. KLEIN, DEPARTMENT HEAD AND
PROFESSOR, NUCLEAR ENGINEERING AND RADIATION HEALTH PHYSICS;
DIRECTOR, RADIATION CENTER, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
Dr. Klein. Thank you very much.
My name is Andrew Klein, and I am Professor and Head of the
Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Health Physics
at the Oregon State University. I am also the Director of the
Radiation Center at Oregon State University, which, as such,
puts me responsible for operating research reactors. So I just
wanted to bring that out, too. I am also Chair of Department of
Energy's NERAC Subcommittee on Nuclear Laboratory Requirements,
and according to the Department's charge to our subcommittee, a
key Department of the Energy objective is to make Idaho
National Laboratory the leading nuclear energy research
laboratory in the world in 10 years after conception.
Furthermore, our subcommittee is in charge of identifying the
characteristics, capabilities, and attributes that a world-
class nuclear laboratory would possess. And the Department has
asked us to report our conclusions or recommendations by the
end of fiscal year 2004. I expect it is going to be a very busy
summer for my Subcommittee.
We have assembled an experienced and dedicated group of
nuclear science and engineering professionals, including
members with backgrounds from the nuclear power industry,
academia, and the national laboratories. Members of the
Subcommittee are: Dr. Beverly Hartline, who has held leadership
roles at the Argonne and Jefferson National Laboratories; Dr.
Long, to my right, who joins us today; Dr. Robert Schock, who
has extensive experience at the Livermore National Laboratory;
and Dr. Michael Sellman, who is President and Chief Executive
Officer of the Nuclear Management Corporation. Since our
subcommittee has a long way to go before we finish our report,
I want to stress that my comments here today are my own and not
necessarily those of, certainly, the Subcommittee nor NERAC
itself.
We are conducting a literature review as one of the first
things that we decided to start with and to look at what these
characteristics are. It is clear from our early studies that
this is not the first time this question has been asked on a
general basis, and we expect to learn quite a bit from the
works of others. We also plan to visit world-class
laboratories, including both nuclear energy-related and non-
nuclear laboratories in the United States, Canada, Europe,
Japan, and South Korea to gather information, talk with
laboratory leadership, and tour a variety of world-class
facilities.
Again, speaking personally and not for the entire
committee, I feel that there are at least three necessary
components to a world-class national laboratory, supported by a
fourth, very essential, element. The first of the three is
recruiting and retaining world-class people. The second is
building and maintaining world-class facilities. The third is
providing world-class research programs to utilize the first
two. The final building block, though, of any world-class
laboratory is a resolute and sustained commitment to see the
task completed.
I will skip the details on some of the first three, but the
final one, one comment on that is that the government's
commitment to date has provided the initiative to establish the
Idaho National Laboratory and must provide the sustained
leadership and financial support required for the INL to meet
its mission.
My personal observation, though, is that the budgets
proposed for the development of this new capability are totally
inadequate. Also, the proposed plan to shift funding to the
cleanup operation--from the cleanup operation to the new
nuclear energy R&D mission over a period of 10 years as the
cleanup mission is completed seems overly optimistic. The next
few years will be especially critical. What happens during the
first five years of the INL will strongly determine the path
that it takes to world-class status. It must be done the right
way the first time.
And I have a couple of short answers to the questions you
posed to me.
First, you asked me to comment on the role of Argonne
National Laboratory and the other national laboratories with
nuclear experience. It is my belief that all of these
capabilities, and to the list of national laboratories, I would
add the Nation's universities and industries with nuclear
energy-related programs, will be needed to go forward if we are
to fully develop nuclear energy systems that will be required
to reduce our Nation's dependence on fossil fuels for
electricity production and, as Dr. Waltar mentioned,
transportation fuels. All three entities, the national
laboratories, universities, and industry, will need to play
important roles in the development of this technology.
Second, you asked my opinion about specific programs the
Department should support at the INL if it was to be considered
a multipurpose laboratory. First, let me believe--say that I
believe that the INL should not be restricted to the focused
mission of developing a nuclear reactor for electricity
production or the production of hydrogen by utilizing a high-
temperature reactor, the heat output from a high-temperature
reactor. The INL needs a much broader mandate than this. I
believe INL should be a multipurpose laboratory and it will be
very important for the Department to support a broad set of
research activities at the INL.
It is also going to take more than just nuclear engineers
to make the INL a world-class laboratory. As you can expect
from someone who has all of his degrees from nuclear
engineering programs and teaches in a university nuclear
engineering program himself, I highly value the skills of
nuclear engineers, however, they will not be enough. Skilled
scientists and engineers of all types, including computational
sciences, mechanical engineers, material scientists, electrical
engineers will all be needed and more.
Also, with respect to your question about NGNP, I believe
that the NGNP development should be a result of creating a
world-class INL and not the reverse. I don't think we should
create the capability of the NGNP first. We should create the
INL first.
Thank you, again, for this opportunity to talk with you
about this important issue.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Klein follows:]
Prepared Statement of Andrew C. Klein
Chairman Biggert, Mr. Larson and Members of the Subcommittee, I
want to thank you for this opportunity to discuss a very important
aspect of the energy future of our country. My name is Andrew Klein and
I am Professor and Head of the Department of Nuclear Engineering and
Radiation Health Physics and the Director of the Radiation Center at
Oregon State University. I also chair the Department of Energy's
Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee's Subcommittee on Nuclear
Laboratory Requirements.
According to the Department's charge to our subcommittee a ``key
Department of Energy objective is to make Idaho National Laboratory the
leading nuclear energy research laboratory in the world in ten years
from its inception.'' Furthermore, our subcommittee has been charged
with identifying the ``characteristics, capabilities, and attributes a
world-class nuclear laboratory would possess''. In addition, the
Department expects the ``members of this subcommittee to become
familiar with the practices, culture, and facilities of other world-
class laboratories--not necessarily confined to the nuclear field--and
use this knowledge to recommend what needs to be implemented at
Idaho.'' Finally, the Department has asked us to report our conclusions
and recommendations by the end of fiscal year 2004. I expect it will be
a very busy summer for our subcommittee.
We have assembled an experienced and dedicated group of nuclear
science and engineering professionals for this subcommittee including
members with backgrounds in the nuclear power industry, national
laboratories and academia. The members of the subcommittee are Dr.
Beverly Hartline, who has held leadership roles with the Argonne and
Jefferson National Laboratories; Dr. Robert Long, who joins us today,
was a faculty member and Department Chair at the University of New
Mexico prior to joining GPU Nuclear, from where he has retired; Dr.
Robert Schock, who has extensive experience at the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory; and Dr. Michael Sellman, who is the President and
Chief Executive Officer of Nuclear Management Corporation. We look
forward to providing our input to the Department of Energy on what it
will take to enable the Idaho National Laboratory to be considered as a
``World-Class Nuclear Energy Research and Development Laboratory.''
However, since our subcommittee has a long way to go before we finish
our report, I want to stress that my comments here today are strictly
my own, and not necessarily the views of the subcommittee or the full
NERAC.
Our subcommittee is conducting a literature review to learn what
others consider to be the characteristics, attributes, and qualities of
world-class research and development laboratories. It was clear early
in our studies that this was not the first time that this question has
been asked and we expect to learn quite a bit from the work of others.
We plan to visit world-class laboratories, including both nuclear
energy related and non-nuclear laboratories, in the United States,
Canada, Europe, Japan and South Korea to collect data, gather
information, talk with laboratory leadership, and tour a variety of
world-class facilities. Some of the visits that we will make during our
investigation include laboratories of the Department of Defense,
Department of Commerce, and other Federally Funded Research and
Development Centers, in addition to many of the national laboratories
within the Department of Energy complex.
We are also conducting a survey of science and engineering leaders,
again both from within the nuclear community and beyond, to learn what
they consider to be the key characteristics, capabilities and
attributes of a world-class nuclear energy research and development
organization. One of the items we found early in our literature review
was a report from the National Research Council that established the
following definition for a world-class research and development
laboratory [1]:
``A world-class R&D organization is one that is recognized by
peers and competitors as among the best in the field on an
international scale, at least in several key attributes.''
In our visits and in our survey, we are asking numerous nuclear and
non-nuclear energy leaders whether they agree with this definition, and
if not, how would they change or improve it. We are also asking them
what makes their laboratory world-class.
Again, speaking personally and not for the entire subcommittee, I
feel that there are three necessary components to a world-class
national laboratory, supported by a fourth essential element. The first
three are: recruiting and retaining world-class people; building and
maintaining world-class facilities; and providing world-class research
and development programs to utilize the first two. The final building
block of any world-class laboratory is a resolute and sustained
commitment to see the task completed.
The first, and most important component of building a world-class
national laboratory is attracting and keeping the very best people. The
INL will need to attract the best and brightest scientists and
engineers from many different technical disciplines in order to be
successful. It will require not just the best nuclear scientists and
engineers, but will include material scientists, chemical engineers,
physicists, chemists, computational specialists and a range of other
specialists who will build the base for a world-class laboratory.
Attracting and retaining high caliber researchers will be challenging,
especially in the early years, and it is critical that the INL take a
flexible approach to get these people involved in the work of the new
laboratory. The INL may need to include a wide variety of appointment
types and opportunities ranging from full-time employment to part-time
appointments or other collaborative appointments to consulting
arrangements to be able to include the right people in this enterprise.
The INL will also need to be a leader in utilizing new and expanding
electronic technologies to draw people in from other geographic areas
for open collaborations to enable the best ideas to be brought to the
problems that INL will be tackling.
Drawing the very best people to come to work with the INL will
require the second component, establishing a series of highly respected
and unique user facilities. One aim here is to get researchers from
universities, industry and other national laboratories to want to work
with the people and facilities already sited at the INL. It is clear
that the best people are attracted to working closely with other top
people in outstanding facilities and locations. University faculty who
are involved on research projects with the INL will bring their ideas,
and more importantly their best graduate students to work with other
outstanding people to make good use of the facilities and
infrastructure that will be developed at INL. Some of those students
will be attracted to stay after their graduation, become INL
researchers themselves, and further build the INL to world-class
status. The subcommittee has not been tasked with suggesting specific
facilities requirements, but if you get the top people in the various
disciplines related to nuclear energy development together, in very
short time they will arrive at a fairly comprehensive list of needed
facility improvements and the new and diverse capabilities they need.
The third component of a world-class nuclear research and
development laboratory is the specific research programs that will fund
the research of these top people and utilize these high quality
facilities. A wide diversity of well-funded research programs will be
essential to building this laboratory, and to enable the further
utilization of nuclear energy for electricity and hydrogen production
in this country and around the world. The diversity of programs will
also be helpful going forward as budgets fluctuate with different
administration priorities and other political changes in the future.
A good example of all of these components coming together to form a
sustained world-class laboratory is the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in
Pasadena, CA. As you know, JPL's main line of research is the
development and operation of space probes for NASA, but if you look
deep inside of JPL you will see that it has all of these three
elements--fantastic people, superb facilities and exciting and
compelling programs and missions. It also has, on site, all of the
disciplinary capabilities across the wide spectrum of research and
development that they need, but they also utilize scientists and
engineers from across the US to accomplish their missions. INL needs to
have all of these elements to succeed in its mission.
Underneath all of this, and providing the motivation and purpose
for the laboratory is a resolute and sustained commitment from the U.S.
Government. This persistent support must not just be from the Office of
Nuclear Energy, but needs to be encouraged by the entire Department and
as much of the rest of the Government as possible. I also feel that
Congress should take ownership of this new laboratory to enable it to
succeed. I am very glad to participate in this discussion today, as it
shows the Congress's intention to see that the INL gets started off in
the right direction. The Government's commitment to date has provided
the initiative to establish the Idaho National Laboratory from the two
existing entities in Idaho Falls, and must provide the sustained
leadership and financial support required for the INL to meet its
mission.
My personal observation, however, is that the budgets proposed for
the development of this new national capability are totally inadequate.
Also, the proposed plan to shift funding from the clean-up operation to
the new nuclear energy R&D mission over a period of ten years, as the
clean-up mission is completed seems overly optimistic. The new
capabilities we are trying to establish at INL need much greater focus
and commitment than this. The next few years are especially critical.
What happens during the first five years of the INL will strongly
determine the path that it takes to world-class status. It must be done
the right way, the first time.
Answers to questions from the Subcommittee
First, you have asked me to comment on the role that Argonne
National Laboratory and the other national laboratories with nuclear
expertise should play in nuclear energy R&D after the INL is
established. It is my belief that all of these capabilities, and to the
list of national laboratories I would add the Nation's universities and
industry with nuclear energy related programs, will be needed going
forward if we are to fully develop the nuclear energy systems that will
be required to reduce our nation's dependence on fossil fuels for
electricity production and transportation fuels. The national
laboratories, universities and industry all will need to play important
roles in the development of the technology related to this energy
source and in the production of the people needed to design and operate
these facilities safely and efficiently.
The Idaho National Laboratory is being established within a number
of important communities, and I would like to speak here about some of
these now. The support and encouragement from all of these communities
will be essential to the INL's success.
The first community I would like to mention is the community of
researchers and scholars who are, and will be, involved in nuclear
energy related research--the primary mission of the INL. That community
is an international one and the INL must develop close interactions
with many, if not most of these researchers in order to get the best
input and ideas in order to apply them to the problems involved in
developing the systems and components needed. Since it will be
impossible to lure all of these individuals to come together
permanently in Idaho Falls, the INL must find creative and innovative
ways to attract and retain the most important individuals and research
groups to work closely with them. These individuals and groups
currently reside in the national laboratories, industry, and
universities, and some of them are students in our nation's K-12 school
systems. Interactions with other national laboratories, industry and
universities should be constant since many of the world's best nuclear
energy researchers are already located at other locations. Finding
creative ways to involve all of these people in the development and
deployment of new nuclear energy systems will be among the important
success criteria for the laboratory.
A second community is the local community in Idaho Falls and the
neighboring areas. While the compelling nature of the activities being
conducted by the INL will bring excitement to the lives of those
working directly on the projects at the laboratory, the cultural and
recreational opportunities of the local area will sustain these
individuals and their families over the long run of the laboratory. It
will be important for those involved to build this aspect of this
second community.
A third community that will also be valuable to cultivate will be a
broad set of local industrial capabilities in Idaho and the region--
high tech spinoffs and imports, new and old companies, will be needed
to complement the activities and capabilities to be assembled within
the INL. It will be important for the INL to work closely with the
State of Idaho and the City of Idaho Falls to develop the broad set of
local industries which will enable the INL to attract people with the
appropriate nuclear and other technical skills and their families.
The broad involvement of all of these communities will be essential
to the development of the INL over its first ten years. They will be
important to the development of the diversity of the knowledge base,
the diversity of the talent base, and the diversity of the workforce at
the INL.
Second, you have asked my opinion about specific programs that the
Department should support at the INL if it is to be considered a multi-
purpose laboratory. First, let me say that I believe that the INL
should not be restricted to the very focused mission of developing a
nuclear reactor for electricity production or the production of
hydrogen by utilizing the high temperature heat output from a reactor.
The INL needs a much broader mandate than this to be considered to be
successful in reaching the goal of being considered world-class. Thus,
I believe that the INL should be a multi-purpose laboratory and that it
will be very important for the Department to support a broad set of
research activities at the INL.
It is going to take more than just nuclear engineers to make the
INL a world-class laboratory. As you can expect from someone who has
all of his degrees in nuclear engineering and teaches in a university
nuclear engineering and health physics program, I think very highly of
the skills and capabilities of nuclear engineers. However, they will
not be enough. Skilled scientists and engineers of all types, including
computational scientists, mechanical engineers, materials scientists,
chemical engineers, physicists, electrical engineers, etc. will be
needed to supply the INL with the capabilities it needs to achieve its
mission of reaching world-class status in 10 years.
Some of the other capabilities that I feel would be important to
have at INL include computational facilities and software development,
high performance materials development, applied physical sciences,
including chemistry and physics, research on manufacturing modular and
large system components, transportation systems for large system
components and radioactive waste, and national security technology
research and development related to nuclear science and technology, to
name a few. All of these added capabilities are complementary to the
nuclear energy and environmental cleanup technologies that are the
natural programs for the INL.
World-class computational facilities will be an important draw for
some of the people needed at INL. Several years ago the INEEL was one
of the leaders in developing computer codes for reactor design and
simulation. With the advances in computing in recent years much more is
now possible--it is even conceivable that every molecule of gas flowing
through a reactor core could be modeled. Leadership class computers
could open up huge new areas of research in reactor design leading to
entirely new approaches and conceptual designs.
High performance software development aimed at a basic principles
approach to modeling could allow engineers and scientists to eliminate
the use of correlations and other corrective measures in their
simulations. This involves a much greater understanding of the physical
and theoretical treatment of neutron interaction physics, fluid flow,
heat transfer, materials interactions in these systems at the
microscopic and molecular level.
Experimental capabilities are needed to verify, validate, and
compare computer calculations to actual physical measurements on a
variety of scales--even full-scale systems. The work in my Department
at Oregon State University over more than a decade, and our close
interactions with the Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, INEEL, Westinghouse and others on scaled system simulation
and testing of a variety of advanced nuclear reactors is a very good
example of the importance of being able to compare calculations with
physical measurements to ensure the accuracy of the computer codes that
are used for system design, safety evaluation and licensing.
Finally, with respect to your questions about the Next Generation
Nuclear Plant, or NGNP, I feel that the development and demonstration
of a high temperature reactor's capabilities to efficiently produce
electricity for our businesses and homes and hydrogen for our
transportation needs is important to the progress of INL to world-class
status. However, development of world leadership in nuclear energy
development by INL should be considered to be independent of the
construction and operation of the NGNP. The people, facilities, and
programs at INL will be very useful to the development and operation of
the NGNP. However, NGNP development should be considered a result of
creating a world-class laboratory at INL, and not the reverse. Many
additional multidisciplinary research facilities and capabilities will
be required at INL to meet this objective. There are undoubtedly ways
to design the NGNP to be a versatile, multidisciplinary research tool,
rather than simply a demonstration project. This will require the
involvement of the best people at the INL and across the Nation's
nuclear energy R&D universities, national laboratories and industry.
Thank you, once again for this opportunity to talk with you about
establishing the Idaho National Laboratory as a world-class nuclear
energy research and development laboratory. I look forward to further
discussions with you today, and in the future.
Reference
[1] National Research Council, ``World-Class Research and
Development,'' National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 1996.
Biography for Andrew C. Klein
Andrew C. Klein became the Head of the Department of Nuclear
Engineering at Oregon State University (OSU) in July 1996. In 2002 the
Department's name was changed to the Department of Nuclear Engineering
and Radiation Health Physics to reflect the broad nature of the
activities in the Department. In October 2002 he also became the
Director of the OSU Radiation Center with line responsibility for the
University's 1.1 megawatt research reactor and the other facilities
managed by the Center.
Dr. Klein received his B.S. in Nuclear Engineering from
Pennsylvania State University in 1977. He went on to complete his M.S.
in Nuclear Engineering and his Ph.D., also in Nuclear Engineering from
the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1979 and 1983 respectively.
He has been on the faculty at OSU since September 1985 after
serving as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Nuclear Engineering at the
University of Cincinnati from August 1983 through August 1985. He was
an Assistant Professor of Nuclear Engineering at OSU from September
1985 to July 1990 when he was promoted to Associate Professor. In July
1996 he was promoted to the rank of Professor.
His research interests are wide and varied including space reactor
systems design and thermal management, transient analysis of nuclear
power systems, microdosimetry, radiation shielding, the technical
aspects of arms control nonproliferation, and health physics. He has
also conducted research in fusion energy systems design, zircalloy
corrosion and radioactive waste management. He has been an author on
more than technical 75 publications in these areas.
Dr. Klein is registered as a Professional Engineer (Nuclear) in the
State of Oregon. He is an active member of the American Nuclear
Society, the Health Physics Society, and the American Society for
Engineering Education. From August 1993 through October 2002, Dr. Klein
was the Director of the Oregon Space Grant Program, a statewide
consortium of universities, colleges, and other educational
organizations established in 1990 by the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA). He served one term on the Board of Directors of
the American Nuclear Society from June 2000 to June 2003, and has
served on the Advisory Committee for Nuclear Technology since 1997 and
as an Advisory Editor for the Annals of Nuclear Energy since 1996. He
also served on the Board of Directors of the National Space Grant
Alliance, Inc. from January 2001 through October 2002. In January 2001
Dr. Klein was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Energy to the
Department of Energy's Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee
(NERAC). Dr. Klein was also a member of USDOE's Generation IV Nuclear
Energy Systems Roadmap Development team and served as the Technical
Director for the Energy Products Crosscut Group in 2001 and 2002. He is
a member of NASA's Space Science Advisory Committee and a member of the
ABET, Inc. Engineering Accreditation Commission.
Discussion
Chairman Biggert. Thank you very much.
We will now proceed to questions by the Members of the
Subcommittee, and we try and limit ourselves to five minutes,
also. So I will recognize myself for five minutes.
And my first question is for Mr. Magwood. Do you agree with
the NERAC estimates on the level of investment needed to
address the maintenance backlog and the equipment upgrades and
replacement of outdated equipment to bring INL facilities up to
the world-class level?
Mr. Magwood. We have, as I mentioned in my statement, been
in the process of creating a 10-year site plan, and a draft of
which we have provided to the Subcommittee staff for their
examination. I won't make a comparison between the estimates
contained in the site plan and the estimates that NERAC made. I
think there are some different bases there, but there is no
question that there is a significant maintenance backlog, there
is a significant disinvestment that the laboratory has faced
over the last decade because it did not have a research focus
in the past, which needs to be addressed. There is no question
of that. And in particular, we are very concerned about the
maintenance of the principal user facility on the site, which
is the advanced test reactor. All of these things require a
focused effort to deal with the backlog, and we intend to carry
out that program to address that backlog.
Chairman Biggert. Well, how does the Department's request
for proposal (RFP) for the INL treat the other labs? Does it
involve transfer of people, equipment, or facilities or any
research and development activities from the other labs to INL?
Mr. Magwood. We don't anticipate the transfer of people or,
for the most part, major programs from the other laboratories.
The only transfer that we have reflected in the RFP is the
consolidation of our Plutonium-238 activities at the Idaho
laboratory. We feel that it makes a lot of sense to consolidate
those activities, because they involve the transport of a
potentially hazardous--well, a very hazardous material,
Plutonium-238. And instead of transporting this material back
and forth across the country, we want to focus the program in
one place and leave it in one place until the final product is
sent to NASA, which is the principle customer of national
security users. Other than that, we expect that the programs at
the other laboratories will continue as they are and continue
to grow at a reasonable pace over time, because there are
important expertise at the various laboratories, particularly
the ones I mentioned, that we feel are absolutely essential to
a successful nuclear energy program, and it makes no sense to
replicate facilities or expertise in the Idaho laboratory that
are currently available and doing well at other labs. So we
intend to apply those capabilities.
Chairman Biggert. Well, since NERAC estimates that there
needs to be an immediate investment of $90 million to get the
INL mission ready and you are not going to transfer any, you
know--anything from other labs, there certainly is going to
be--has to be a lot of, you know, immediate equipment that
can't be phased in and actually staffed. Scientists are going
to have to be hired. And your timeline is what, the 10 years?
Mr. Magwood. Well, let me clarify that. I--NERAC's
conclusion, and I think Dr. Long could speak to this better
than I can, but NERAC's recommendation was that there is a $90
million backlog. That doesn't mean that you have to do it all
in one year. It can be done over some period of time, and we
anticipate dealing with that backlog over a period of time and
transferring research programs and personnel from the other
laboratories would not assist us in addressing that backlog.
What needs to happen is that we need to have a plan, which we
now have, which the staff has been given access to, to focus to
deal with the maintenance backlog and to eliminate the backlog.
And we are going to do that.
Our plan, which is reflected in our request for proposals,
is that between now--or between the inception of the laboratory
early next year, in 10 years from there that the Idaho
laboratory would have the people, the facilities, the equipment
that would make it clearly the best nuclear energy research
laboratory in the world, we hope. And we think that is a
possible goal. And we think that the NGNP is not the only
component of that, but it is a very important starting point to
build that capability in the laboratory.
Chairman Biggert. Won't transferring the Pu-238 program to
INL be more costly?
Mr. Magwood. We think that it will actually pay for itself
over time, because it is very expensive to transport Pu-238 and
some of the precursor materials back and forth across the
country in secure transports, especially as we deal with
increased security requirements. And also, it makes a lot of
sense for us to consolidate these activities and consolidate
the expertise in one place. We think the efficiencies we gain
from that will make the program pay for itself in about 10 or
15 years. We don't have a precise estimate at this point; we
are still developing that. But if this goes forward, I think we
will find that we have a much, much more efficient program, a
more secure program, and really a better program.
Chairman Biggert. All right. Thank you. My time has
expired.
I recognize the Ranking Member, Mr. Larson, for five
minutes.
Mr. Larson. Thank you. Thank you, Madame Chairman, and I
thank the distinguished panelists for your comments.
I was struck by your testimony. It seems that there is
unanimity in the need and concern for ongoing funding, that we
are underfunded in many critical areas. I think, Dr. Waltar,
you suggested about $300 million on an annual basis. I would
suggest it probably will take more than that. I was also struck
in the--your testimony, Dr. Waltar, about, excuse me, nuclear
power. And I wanted you, if you could, to elaborate. I am a big
proponent of moving from a petro-economy to a hydro-economy,
and you seem to imply in your testimony that it was only
realistic--or more feasible, shall I say, that it be nuclear
power that aides and abets the movement towards--assists
hydrogen power. You addressed, I think, vehicles in your
comments or eluded to that. Could you amplify those comments
and could you explain the relationship between the two, given
that there is a great deal of skepticism often that exists in
the public about nuclear energy? I am wondering if the linkage
between the two could be a bridge towards a technological
breakthrough.
Dr. Waltar. Thank you, Mr. Larson. Excellent question.
Yeah, about 1/3 of our total energy that we use in this
country is in the form of petroleum and that is, I don't know
what percent, 90 or 95 percent of our transportation. We know
that we have peaked our oil production in this country and we
are getting close to peaking now in the world. And so, at some
point in time, you know, that resource is going to go away, and
we know that the resource is in very unstable regions. We are
very, very dependent on petroleum. So we need another energy
carrier. And hydrogen appears to be that type of a system. As
you know, it is hydrogen and oxygen combined and the waste
product is water. That sounds really good. Now of course, those
that are not in the business would say, ``Well, there is lots
of hydrogen in water.'' Yeah, but that is the ash. We have got
to get the hydrogen out of the water and it takes energy to get
it. Right now, hydrogen in this country is being produced for
the petrochemical industry to boost the octane ratings and so
forth, but it comes from hydrocarbons. And if we continue to
get our hydrogen there, we are going to be dispersing more
CO2 and so forth. It is not--it certainly isn't
compatible with long-term environmental stewardship.
So the question posed is that it takes energy to get the
hydrogen out wherever we get it. And nuclear power looks like
the kind of resource that, number one, has the sustainability
to do it. I mean, we, presumably, would have nuclear power here
for at least a millennium, if we choose to do that. We can do
so from a very environmentally compatible standpoint, so it
seems like the one energy source that has all of the attributes
capable of producing enough energy to get enough hydrogen that
we can actually displace petroleum for our transportation
sector. In fact, in this six lab directors report that I think
I attached to the written testimony, the goal was by the year
2050 to have about 50 percent of all of our electricity in this
country produced from nuclear. Now it is about 20 percent. That
is a huge increase, extremely ambitious. But also, maybe up to
25 percent of all of the petroleum, if you will, that is being
used for transportation. Again, huge, huge challenge, but
nuclear energy does have the capability----
Mr. Larson. What kind of investment would it take, because
when you talk to people, you get varying accounts? Now it seems
to me once the country sets its mind on a vision, if we are
able to place a man on the moon within 10 years, which I would
suggest probably is more technologically difficult than being
able to provide transmission or the heating and cooling of
buildings with hydrogen, what is the stumbling block? Is it
simply the amount of money? We are spending over--we are going
to be over $200 billion in the current Iraqi war. It would seem
to me if we had 1/10 of that devoted on an annual basis that we
would be able to extricate ourselves, as all of you have
suggested, from dependency. How much money? Is there a direct
correlation between the amount of money, research and
development, and the time frame it takes to, say, make us not
energy independent but energy sufficient, even for that matter?
The good Dr. Bartlett reminds us, of course, that we only have
about two percent of the world's remaining reserves here, in
this country, and there is about, I think, 66 percent, he
reminds us, in the Gulf States where we find ourselves in a
current quagmire.
Dr. Waltar. I don't have a good feeling of the total amount
of money. Maybe somebody else here can help. But clearly, we
have to at least find out how best to get the hydrogen, and
this can either be done chemically or through a reverse fuel
cell kind of technique, and we need to exercise that
capability. As Dr. Klein pointed out, nuclear engineers, as
fabulous as we are, can't do it all. We need the chemical
engineers. We need the entire scientific infrastructure. I am
sure Mr. Ehlers would know. But good science is needed here,
because we are talking about processes that are up to around
800 degrees Centigrade and so forth. There is a lot of work
that has to be done. Substantially more effort is needed to be
done. There is no question about it. But we also, then, have to
develop high temperature designs if nuclear is to be the energy
source. That is why the high-temperature gas reactor is so
important, because we have to get temperatures much higher than
our current fleet of 103 reactors that are operating now. We
simply don't have high enough efficiencies to do it unless, as
some would say, we could use electricity during the night and
so forth, when it is cheap, if you will, to do this. So it is
possible that we could transition this, but we do need
sufficient funds to develop the best process to make the
hydrogen and also to develop the reactor technology to get the
temperatures we need to do it.
Maybe, Bill, you would like to talk about the amount of
money required. I really don't have a good feel for that.
Mr. Magwood. Well, Mr. Larson, I think that--I will say a
couple things very quickly; I know your time is expiring. But
it is not really just the money, because we--for example, the
NGNP is a vital step in applying nuclear energy to the
production of hydrogen. If we are successful in doing that. The
early estimates, which were not performed by my office, but
actually by our Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable
Energy, were that we could achieve the equivalent cost of
hydrogen through these advanced reactors that would be
equivalent to $1.50 to $2 for a gallon of gasoline, which, when
the estimate was made, was about the same as gas, and which now
would be a pretty good deal, especially for people like me with
SUVs. So there is a--there is research that needs to be done.
That research is simply going to take time. But I think that
really, the more difficult issue is going to be the
infrastructure, and transitioning over from today's
infrastructure, which carries electricity in wires and natural
gas in pipelines, to one where we find a way to move hydrogen
around. It is going to be a major transition.
And then beyond that, on the use side, we have a lot of
research----
Mr. Larson. It sounds like a great WPA project for our
nation in desperate need of putting people back to work.
Mr. Magwood. Well, I will say one last comment, and that is
that--and it is something that the Department is working very,
very hard on under the President's National Hydrogen Fuel
Initiative, which is that we really need to make the fuel cell
technology as efficient as possible so that we can build these
vehicles for the future. And I have actually gone around to
high schools across the country talking about the link between
hydrogen and nuclear. You should see their eyes light up when
we talk about this. And they are excited, and we are excited.
And we think this can be done, but it will take time, and it
will take some resources.
Chairman Biggert. Thank you.
Next is Dr. Bartlett is recognized for five minutes, the
gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you very much.
There are, I gather, three different nuclear processes from
which we could get energy: light water reactors and breeder
reactors, and fusion. Which of these will you be exploring in
your new laboratory?
Mr. Magwood. I guess this is a question for me, Mr.
Bartlett.
We actually--other than fusion, I think we will explore
almost every nuclear technology. As I mentioned earlier on, the
Generation IV International Forum identified six technologies
of which I think two or three, actually, were liquid metal
reactor, fast meter reactors. There were a couple thermal
reactors, but you know, beyond even what you mentioned, there
are also some other technologies, so there is a wide range of
technologies. This laboratory will be active in all of those
areas, but the principle near-term focus will actually be with
gas-cooled reactor technology and development of the Next
Generation Nuclear Plant.
Mr. Bartlett. You will be exploring some technologies that
do not depend on fissionable Uranium?
Mr. Magwood. Well, I think that we will be looking at
different fuel cycle options. There are, certainly,
technologies that would use, for example, Thorium instead of
Uranium. I don't think that that is a high priority for us
right now, because we think there is a lot of Uranium
available, and particularly----
Mr. Bartlett. How much Uranium, do you think, is available?
Mr. Magwood. Well, there are different estimates about
that. There is actually a lot of argument in the technical
community about it. As a matter of fact, Commerce tasked us in
last year's appropriation to develop a better estimate, but
estimates I have seen range from where Uranium would start to
run out, maybe, in about a century. And there are others that
think it would be available much longer than that. But I like
to assume that the Uranium will be around for the near-term but
that we need to have some better options for the longer-term.
Mr. Bartlett. Well, that was the intent of my question. If
we are looking for a replacement for fossil fuels, we need to
look at something that will be here for longer than fossil
fuels. Oil, as was mentioned, we have about 1,000 gigabarrels
of known reserves in the world. We will find more. We would
sure as heck like to use more, and so would China and India, by
the way, that are using enormously more now. And if the more we
find matches the more we would like to use, we are going to be
more than lucky. We are not going to find that much more. If
you divide the 80 million barrels a day we use into the 1,000
gigabarrels of known reserves, we have about 40 years of oil
left in the world. And it is not going to last 40 years,
because we would sure like to use more and we are not going to
find enough more to match the more that we would like to use.
So we have got to be looking at something that is going to
carry us beyond this age of oil. And my understanding is that
if it is simply fissionable Uranium, that there is not a heck
of a lot more reserves of that in the world than there is of
oil. So we have got to be looking at something beyond that.
And that brings you to breeder reactors, a whole new set of
challenges. I am a big, big fan of nuclear. We have got to do
something. And I think, Dr. Waltar, that we could do without
either nuclear or fossil fuels if, in fact, we exploited all of
the opportunities we have for conservation, for efficiency, and
for renewables. There is enough wind, if you can stand all of
the wind machines on all of the hills to produce all of the
electricity that we need in this country. But I think the big
challenge is in educating our people that we have got to do
something. Going along the way we are now is not acceptable. We
will come to a big crunch in the future. And the biggest
impediment to more nuclear power is not our R&D and good ideas
for better facilities; it is the--it is education. And the
American--we have a culture which now will not support
increased nuclear use. We have got to change that culture. How
do we do that? Do we need some shock therapy somehow? How do we
do it? And whose responsibility is that?
Dr. Waltar. I will take a crack at that.
Mr. Bartlett. Yes, sir.
Dr. Waltar. I love this committee. You are asking all of
the right questions.
First of all, you are absolutely right. We have to think in
terms of energy resources, we have to have something beyond
coal and so forth, and I think your discussion implies
ultimately, if we use the breeder reactor, we can get there. We
have a millennia sort of thing. You are pouring warm milk in
front of a puppy dog here since I wrote the book on fast
breeder reactors. There is another reason that technology needs
to be pushed on, that is because of Yucca Mountain. The
question is how can we extend the utility there. And so I think
one of the programs that Dr. Magwood talked about was,
ultimately, a fast-spectrum reactor to transmute those things
so we can go from tens of thousands of years to perhaps a few
hundreds of years kind of thing and substantially reduce the
waste.
On education, this is an incredibly important thing.
Frankly, more Americans support nuclear energy than we are led
to believe. Poll after poll after poll would indicate that more
people themselves understand exactly what you said but they
don't think their neighbor feels the same thing. You don't feel
that Mr. Ehlers feels that way. He does. I can tell you that.
But I think we have to understand something. We have to have
some leadership. And when we look at the importance of what
energy does to free our society, to allow us to live the way we
do, and recognize that the rest of the world is looking at us
and is green with envy and the frustration that causes. Energy
is essential for security and for prosperity, we have to get
there, so we have to look beyond what we have now. And with
science and technology, there are a lot of levers that we can
pull, but I frankly would go back to Members of Congress. Tell
it like it is. We are viewed sometimes as biased to justify our
own business, so to speak, but frankly, we have to have some
courage. We have to ring the bell. And it just has to be done.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Madame Chair.
Chairman Biggert. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentlewoman from California, Ms. Woolsey, is recognized
for five minutes.
Ms. Woolsey. Thank you, Madame Chairwoman.
I would like to point out that when Roscoe Bartlett talks
like he just did about the future, he drives a hybrid car. He
means what he is saying.
Dr. Waltar, Dr. Long, any of you, whenever we speak of
nuclear anything, I immediately get nervous about human error
and about waste. So I am going to talk--I hope you will answer
my waste questions for me. You know. Keeping humans from being
human and making mistakes is one thing, but creating waste
purposefully and not having anything to do with it--to do--any
way to handle it is something else. So when we are talking
about the Idaho lab and a 10-year window of dealing with the
waste, I would like you to tell me, any of you that know, will
it be finished in 10 years and what are we going to do with the
new waste? And will there be the funds there if we are finished
with cleaning up the waste 10 years later? You can--whoever you
think is best to answer this or----
Dr. Waltar. Let me take personal blame for that. Because
when I went into this business 20 or 30 years ago, I could have
gone into the science of treating nuclear waste, if you will. I
didn't want to do it. Why? Because it was something we didn't
have to deal with for decades. We reasoned that if the waste is
so small than we can start later. I wanted to build reactors. I
wanted to do exciting things. I think I can speak for my
generation. We did that. Now scientists are not very good
politicians. 20 or 30 years ago, there was a lot of support for
nuclear energy. We could have built our waste repositories. It
would have gone through easily, but we didn't do it, because we
didn't have to, because, in fact, the waste is so small. Now,
unfortunately, it has been turned around, and somehow the
public is of the opinion that this is something that can't be
dealt with. The reality is the waste quantity is so small that
there are lots of creative engineers that can think of ways to
deal with that. And so it sounds like it is not solvable, but,
as I have indicated earlier, we have ways. We, in fact, can
store everything from our current nuclear reactors now in Yucca
Mountain as is currently, but it is not enough. I mean, we are
going to have to ultimately, perhaps, have more. But I
mentioned earlier in my question to Mr. Bartlett, there are
ways to convert this waste from a long-term concern of, you
know, tens of thousands of years into a few hundred years.
I should say also that something that has a very long half-
life of several thousands of years sounds dangerous. The fact
is that is far less dangerous than something that has a short
half-life. I mean, arsenic and lead and these things have
infinite half-lives. So I think there is a question of how to
convey the fact that nuclear waste, yeah, it is not something
we want to put in our pocket, but there are scientific ways to
deal with this. So from a technical standpoint, it is not an
issue. It really, quite honestly, is a political one.
Ms. Woolsey. Well, okay, let us--Yucca Mountain is not a
sure thing. And it is being challenged every which way. And no
matter how small it is, doesn't it have to go some place? What
is it going to cost? Who is going to pay for it? And is it
going to happen?
Dr. Long. I--Ms. Woolsey, I think it is certainly important
that you understand that the utility industry has been
collecting 1/10 of a mil per kilowatt hour from the beginning
of the generation of nuclear power and that there is now about
$17 billion in that fund that has accumulated to provide for
the disposal of the waste. So the money is there. The Congress
has had difficulty allocating it so that the progress on Yucca
Mountain could move forward. I am a past President of the
American Nuclear Society as well as Alan, and in 1991, I gave a
speech at a Russian conference about the history of our dealing
with nuclear waste, and they said they didn't believe it. We
couldn't be so messed. We had just not done the things that we
needed to do. We haven't done the things that the Congress has
directed us to do. We let it slip. But as Alan said, the
volumes of waste are very small, and the storage of the fuel at
the site is the way that the industry now takes care of the
high-level activity in the spent fuel.
Ms. Woolsey. Is there no other way to--a more scientific
way to deal with waste than Yucca Mountain? Obviously not, or
you would have said yes right away.
Dr. Long. Well, Alan has mentioned that you can transmute
the waste. You put the spent--the fission products and the
trans-Uranium products into a fast reactor. You can convert
some of them to much less harmful isotopes. So there are ways,
and that is part of the Advanced Fuel Concepts Initiative that
the Office of Nuclear Energy is directing.
Ms. Woolsey. All right. Thank you. My time is up.
Chairman Biggert. Thank you very much.
I recognize another doctor, Dr. Ehlers, the gentleman from
Michigan, for five minutes.
Mr. Ehlers. Actually, I could use 20 minutes, but I will
try to do what I can.
First of all, just a comment on the issues that were just
mentioned, which are largely political. Many years ago, I did a
fairly--took a fairly good look at the environmental dangers
and aspects of power generation of various types, and I came to
the conclusion that coal-fired plants and perhaps gasillary
plants and nuclear power are all equally bad, and that is
simply because they each have very difficult environmental
problems. And obviously fossil fuel is a difficult problem
because of the greenhouse gases and the effect that it could
have on climate change. The nuclear industry, of course, has
the problem of dealing with waste and potential disasters.
Frankly, I would much rather deal with a few hundred cubic
yards of nuclear waste than to try to contain the greenhouse
gases from fossil fuel plants. And yet the public chose the
other option. And I have had a--I have been a member of the
Sierra Club for over 30 years, and I have had many arguments
with my fellow members on that topic. I just think they have
pushed an alternative that is really not that good. The best
alternatives are doing other things. Hydrogen, of course, if we
can produce it in a non-polluting way, would be good, and that
is why this particular project is so extremely important
because if we don't do it this way, we are going to do it from
fossil fuels, which just compounds the problem we already have.
Now on the proposal itself of what this hearing is about,
I--it probably makes sense to consolidate things. I am not yet
convinced it is--consolidating in Idaho is the best thing. I
just don't know, at this moment, where the most expertise
resides and the best facilities, but I am certainly willing to
consider that. At the same time, it sounds to me like kind of a
half-baked proposal. Maybe I just don't know enough of the
details, but when you come out with a proposal to consolidate
and reduce the funding by $6 million, that means you are not
serious about the project, because if you really want to
combine this and really want to achieve the goal of developing
this new type of reactor and including looking at hydrogen
production, you are talking big money. And so there better be
big money behind this proposal, otherwise it is really
meaningless, and I am not sure it is worth going forward with.
We have got a lot of infrastructure to develop, too. We
have allowed nuclear engineering education programs to wither
on the vine, so we don't have as many experts out there as we
need if we are serious about going in this direction.
A question I have is where is the rest of the world on
this? Are we just going to be playing catch up or are we better
off just using the knowledge that they have developed, because
they have continued their work on this? And why--what is our
advantage of going ahead with our own efforts? Are we going to
be duplicating it or are we trying to do something so new and
different that it is worth the investment, a very large
investment, that we have to make in this? So that is my first
question.
Mr. Magwood. Well, let me try to answer that.
First, let me thank you for that comment. I agree with many
things you say. I hope to convince you, over time, that our
plan for the Idaho laboratory is the right approach to build a
central command center, as Secretary Abraham has put it, for
nuclear engineering research. And I do believe that the
expertise that is available in Idaho gives us an excellent
starting point in creating such a laboratory. We are going to
work with the laboratory, the Idaho National Laboratory, to
coordinate very closely with our international partners. As I
mentioned, we have formed an organization of governments called
the Generation IV International Forum, which now has ten
members, that is very closely coordinating research in most of
the key areas associated with new technologies in nuclear
engineering research. And these countries are going to
implement research and development plans together. For example,
in the case of the NGNP and the very high-temperature reactor
technology that it is based on, we, the Japanese, the French,
the Koreans, and the South Africans, actually, have already
begun work on a joint research plan to advance that area of
technology. And in doing so, we will be able to avoid
duplicating the effort that the others have accomplished. The
Japanese, in particular, have recently achieved remarkable
success in one of their facilities in reaching a temperature of
950 Centigrade, which is getting very close to the level that
we are aiming for in our reactor design, and also have produced
hydrogen in a limited quantity. So they have made an investment
over the '90s that we hope to benefit from. And we think that
when we look at what they have accomplished and what the French
have accomplished and what some of these other countries have
accomplished, working with our Idaho laboratory and doing new
research in key areas, we will be in--successful in pulling
this together and having--if the decision goes forward to
actually proceed with this, having a facility that is actually
making electricity, making hydrogen some time in the middle of
the next decade. So we think this is very possible, and we are
off to a good start, I believe.
Mr. Ehlers. Okay. Let me just make one last comment, since
my time has expired, on the political nature that Dr. Waltar
observed. And you are right, scientists tend not to be good
politicians, with the exception of the two sitting right here,
but the industry has done a terrible job, and I said this many
years ago, and then it kept running these ads saying, ``Nuclear
power is safe. We have made it safe. Nothing can happen,''
which is a stupid thing to do, because things do happen. So
when Three Mile Island happened, everyone--they lost all
credibility. If they had simply said, ``We have made them safe
so that when accidents happen, it won't hurt you. We may lose
$2 billion, but it won't hurt the public,'' then Three Mile
Island would have verified--exploited what they said, and it
would have been a totally different issue. Promising total
safety is an absurd thing to do and you can't do it.
Thank you.
Chairman Biggert. Thank you, Dr. Ehlers.
Dr. Gingrey from Georgia, the gentleman from Georgia is
recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Gingrey. Thank you, Chairman Biggert.
Dr. Long, in Dr. Klein's testimony, he said that the Next
Generation Nuclear Plant could be designed to be a
multidisciplinary research tool rather than as simply a
demonstration project. But you suggest in your testimony that
the Next Generation Nuclear Plant should not be seen as a user
facility for researchers. Can you explain your disagreement on
this--or seemed disagreement on this point?
Dr. Long. Yes, sir. It is--I think the NGNP research that
is needed can be a center of excellence kind of exploration,
and I believe that is what Dr. Klein was referring to. My
specific comment was that once it is completed and is now in
the production mode that it would not then be seen, I don't
believe, as a user facility. So that is the difference that--
the research--as Mr. Magwood has pointed out, there is a number
of quite extensive research efforts, high-temperature materials
and the transport of hydrogen, lots of things that need to be
done that could be--to form a center of excellence, which could
be very attractive. Once the facility is completed, however, it
will become a production facility, and I spent 20 years of my
career in the power industry. And people who are in production
mode don't do much research.
Mr. Gingrey. Dr. Klein, your comment?
Dr. Klein. Since Dr. Long are in this Committee, we haven't
gotten very far. That is an open question for discussion, but I
would agree with what he just said. When we start operation of
the NGNP, it likely will be just a production facility and
that. But I think it can be designed so that while we are
getting there, and even while it is being operated, maybe we
can get some continued research out of it. The completion
between research and production will be severe, and often
research will lose out.
Mr. Gingrey. Well, that is a segue into my next question,
and I will direct this to Dr. Long, you, and also Dr. Waltar.
What new facilities are needed to carry out the Department of
Energy's nuclear energy R&D missions? Should all of these new
facilities be built at the Idaho National Laboratory?
Dr. Long. I will answer the first part--the second part
first, no; it will not all be done, and I think Mr. Magwood has
pointed that out. We set--I--from when I did my piece--
dissertation at Argonne, I worked as a student at Oak Ridge, so
I am familiar with other laboratories and capabilities there.
So the role of Idaho, I see, is one of coordinating,
facilitating, guiding the whole process and identifying. One
facility that is clear, to me at least, will be a source of
fast neutrons. And we have shut down the reactors that can
produce fast neutrons for fuel development. So where that
should be developed, I think, is a question that will have to
be answered over time, but is certainly one of the ones that
will be needed. And then extensive high-temperature materials
research will be needed. And I think that will fall into the
various laboratories, not just at Idaho.
Mr. Gingrey. Dr. Waltar.
Dr. Waltar. Well, I tend to agree with that. But I think it
is awfully important that we make the commitment on this new
reactor at Idaho for several reasons, to galvanize our
commitment toward high-temperature for the possibility of
hydrogen production. That is very, very important, as comments
were made earlier. Secondly, we have to recognize, and several
people have recorded this, we need the best and brightest in
this field. This is not rocket science. It is better than that.
And a lot depends on success, as Dr. Ehlers has said. I mean,
we can't make gross mistakes here. So it is very important that
we attract the best and brightest students in the Nation to
come into this business. And what attracts them more than
anything else is a program that is moving, something real,
something that they can identify with. And I believe that this
new reactor that we are talking about is the right first step.
As Dr. Long pointed out, we will need other facilities, and we
will need side facilities with other national laboratories to
support this, but that focus has enormous appeal to the next
generation, and we simply have to get them into this business.
Mr. Gingrey. Thank you.
Thank you, Madame Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Biggert. Thank you, Dr. Gingrey.
We will start another round, then, and I will recognize
myself for five minutes.
All right. Dr. Klein, in your written testimony, you site
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California as an example to
follow. You said that JPL specializes in deep space probes but
also supports a wide spectrum of research. How should INL
emulate JPL's example? And should INL's R&D portfolio be as
broad as that of the other DOE multipurpose labs?
Dr. Klein. JPL is one of the routes we took already in the
process that we are going through. We learned quite a bit about
them. There are some things that can be replicated in Idaho.
There are many things that can not. It is going to be a
challenge of the new maintenance operations contractor to do
that. For example, there is no Cal Tech in Idaho Falls. It is a
reality. So they are going to have to come up with ways to work
with regional, local, and national universities to bring in
that talent that the Cal Tech, being right next door, does. The
new technologies will allow that. We can find ways to bring
people there from anywhere from an hour to full-time. It
doesn't have to just be sitting onsite in Idaho Falls to do
this. It is going to take a challenge.
Chairman Biggert. I know that Idaho is a--is not a large
state, but it has got a lot of wide open spaces, and it doesn't
have the metropolitan area that I know a lot of the labs have
to have in the universities there, and so we--are we really
going to then have to develop at that site or nearby the
universities of the caliber of Cal Tech if we are going to have
this to be a leading lab?
Dr. Klein. I think that would be a very--that part of it
would be a challenge, but it doesn't mean it couldn't use the
distance education technology, the high-tech technologies we
have developed. Communication skills now are much better than
they were when we set up JPL in 1950. So I think good as much--
in fact, JPL grew out of Cal Tech. I think that this is a
different picture. I think it is going to be a challenge to do
it, but I think the capabilities are there to get the people
that need to be involved in these programs, whether they are in
Chicago, at Argonne, whether they are at Oak Ridge, whether
they are at Brooke Haven, Los Alamos, any of the other labs,
and particularly, the universities across the country.
Chairman Biggert. That leads to another question for--maybe
for you or for Dr. Waltar that Argonne National Lab has
considerable expertise in computing and simulation that could
be used to model an advanced reactor design. Should we begin
with a collaboration between INL and Argonne to simulate the
proposed designs for the NGNP or why wouldn't we take advantage
of the improvements in high-performance computing to refine the
reactor at the time before investing $1 billion?
Dr. Klein. I would like to see a collaboration be very
strong between the two groups. I think that it is absolutely
necessary to have that collaboration. Where you put the
computers that do that doesn't really matter these days
anymore. I think that really--they can be put anywhere, pretty
much. But I think the collaboration is going to be very
important to get down to the basic principles of science to get
those down as far and get rid of correlations, simple things
like that in these models. I mean, new model development is
going to be critical.
Dr. Waltar. Maybe I could just add to that. I spent a lot
of my career at Argonne National Laboratory East. I have
enormous respect for the capability. And you are absolutely
right, a lot of the early models and more, very sophisticated
modeling would be done there. But you know, as Andy pointed
out, I think we are hearing that we can collaborate, we must
collaborate. The reality is a lot of the professionals at the
laboratories simply don't want to move. It wouldn't matter
whether they were asked to move to Idaho or moving to somewhere
else. Their families are there. They have grown up there, and
they like it. So we have to find a way to take advantage of
those professionals, and frankly, if there is major science
going on, it will happen. The collaboration will take place. I
think we can say, you know, the networking is powerful. This is
not a huge business. It is not like many other industries. Most
people know each other. And as long as we have got a good,
aggressive program with strong leadership, people can work
together. They really, truly can.
Chairman Biggert. Well, I think you are absolutely right,
too. We are going to have to have more nuclear scientists and
engineers, because so many are, you know--I think within five
years, 75 percent will be eligible for retirement. And if we
don't bring the young people----
Dr. Waltar. I have jet black hair. I just paint it gray!
Chairman Biggert. Thank you. And then Dr.--or Mr. Magwood,
the NERAC Infrastructure Task Force had, I think, urged the
Department not to link the INL funding to future decreases in
funding for the Idaho cleanup project. And I am bringing this
back to basic questions, so I make sure we--I think we have had
a really good talk over. This is kind of a--but just what is
the Department's response to that recommendation?
Mr. Magwood. Well, I think what I can say about that is we
really have seen the impossible decreases in funding for the
environmental management program in Idaho as an opportunity. I
think that as EM program is successful in accomplishing its
missions, it will free up the budget targets, which are
increasingly dearer these days, that can be applied in Idaho to
the research mission. I don't--I see that as an opportunity. I
don't see that as a limitation. I think that what we are
planning right now for the NGNP is not predicated on the EM
program. I think it is really--I think--but I do hope that that
does occur, because as EM completes its mission, not only frees
up resources, it really gets out of the way, and once it----
Chairman Biggert. I guess the problem is that it is not
going to be immediate, and we have been talking about how
important this is and--you know, to develop the nuclear to take
the place of the fossil fuels, so it seems to me, then, that we
are just delaying this.
Mr. Magwood. But again, I don't think that we are waiting
for EM to go down before we go up. We really are looking right
now at what is necessary to go forward with what we have talked
about. And I am not linking that, at this point, to----
Chairman Biggert. But we have had a decrease in funds, and
that is--I think, as Dr. Bartlett said, do we really have a
commitment to do this then, not only doing this plus the
decrease in funding?
Mr. Magwood. Right. I think the Department has a
commitment. I have worked very closely with the senior
management department. They take the development of the
laboratory, they take the NGNP and the Advanced Fuel Cycle
Initiative, and other programs very, very seriously. I do think
that the fiscal year 2005 request did reflect, you know, a lot
of tightness in the budget that we had to deal with last year
for a lot of reasons that I think you are very familiar with
and also reflected the state of some of the programs where we
had to make some tough choices. And I think it was reflected in
the request. But I also recognize that--you know, that we are--
we do have to balance--or we have to live within the
constraints, and we have to fight for our programs and other
programs fight for their programs. And I think you will see the
nuclear energy program do quite well as things go forward in
the future. I actually feel like we are getting off to a good
start, because--mostly because I think we have such a strong
planning basis. And I think the word that the people here at
this table have--including Dr. Waltar, while he isn't a member
of NERAC, has served on the Advisory Task Force for us, and I
think that we have one of the strongest playing bases of any
technical program in the Department. And I feel very confident
that that will prove to be very beneficial as we are fighting
for funding in the future.
Chairman Biggert. Thank you.
The gentleman from California is recognized.
Ms. Woolsey. Thank you, Madame Chairwoman.
Dr. Klein, every one of our facilities has stockpiles of
nuclear waste and materials. And there is the concern, of
course, about security. So how are we doing inside the
facilities and Homeland Security? Are we addressing this, the
stockpiles of nuclear waste? And what else do we need to do?
Dr. Klein. Most definitely. The--there have been
significant increases in the last 21/2 years in the amount of
security and the activities on the sites of, I am sure, all of
our facilities, including our little one in Oregon. We take
very seriously our role of protecting that material. Going for
it, I know the nuclear utilities around their plants have spent
a large amount of money. I have talked to the utility
executives. They are concerned about the amounts of having to
spend, but they are spending a lot of money and putting the
emphasis on protecting those materials.
Ms. Woolsey. Okay. Well, it is one thing to be spending
money and another thing to be successful. So now is there
anything we are not doing that Homeland Security should be
addressing? I mean, we are in the middle of this right now, and
to overlook it would be a big mistake.
Dr. Klein. I don't feel confident to answer that question
more than for my local facility.
Ms. Woolsey. All right.
Dr. Klein. I think we are doing the best at our facility.
Ms. Woolsey. All right. Dr. Long.
Dr. Long. Yes. I am on the Environmental Safety Health
Panel for the University of California who has oversight over
Lawrence Berkley, Lawrence Livermore, and Los Alamos. I have
been on the Los Alamos review panels for about eight years now
and the other two for the last two years, and there has been
significant reductions in the waste--the legacy waste,
particularly, that have been left over from years of the bomb
development in the original--from the '40s and the '50s and
then with the Cold War. It is very impressive when you see the
actual numbers, and I can't quote them to you, but there has
been very, very significant reductions in the waste. Sandia
laboratories and their nuclear facilities just interviewed some
people a few weeks ago where they were describing literally
tons of material that has been taken out of their facilities
for proper storage.
Ms. Woolsey. Well, is this in response to 9/11 and the fear
of terrorism? I mean, this is what I am getting at with
Homeland Security and how vulnerable you all are.
Dr. Long. Some of it is in response to that, but I think in
terms of the reduction of the legacy waste, that has been a
long-term policy of DOE that they have worked at consistently
for a number of years. In the security area, there are
certainly major efforts in all of those laboratories that I am
closely associated with to identify potential problems to
correct them, to increase the security levels where needed. So
I am convinced that people are very sensitive to potential
threats of terrorism and addressing them.
Ms. Woolsey. Well, is there anything the Federal Government
should be doing? Dr. Waltar.
Dr. Waltar. Yes, to add, I think to what has been said, I
don't disagree personally. I have very little experience
directly in the security area, but again, everything that I
have heard said here is consistent. I know I have talked to
some utility executives as well, and the laboratory people. You
know. They are in the spotlight, they recognize. We live this
side of 9/11. I couldn't say that there isn't something
additional we could do, but, you know, at some point in time,
the returns are--I am just not really qualified to----
Ms. Woolsey. Mr. Magwood.
Mr. Magwood. Well, I think we clearly have taken the steps
that we can take at this time. We have really focused a lot on
our security infrastructure. We have, I think, improved things
significantly since 9/11. I don't think there is any question
of that. The Department has taken on the practice of
consolidating the location of nuclear materials. For example,
the decision was very tough for us, we have moved from a site
in Ohio where we were storing Plutonium-238 and doing work
there, and it was a very good site for us, and moved it to
Idaho, because we felt it was safer in Idaho than it was at
this site in Ohio. And more of that sort of thing will take
place. Secretary Abraham is very serious about this. I don't
think there is any issue that he takes more seriously than the
security of our infrastructure. And he has watched the--a look
in exploration, the possibility in enhancing our guard forces,
possibly even federalizing the guard forces to make sure we
have the highest quality of protection. And I tell you, I have
visited, just recently, one of our sites and found that the
guard forces there were kind of scary, quite frankly. So I
wouldn't advise anyone to take a run at any of our facilities.
I think they will find that they will be challenged quite
severely.
Ms. Woolsey. Thank you.
Chairman Biggert. Thank you very much.
The gentleman from Maryland, Dr. Bartlett.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you.
When was the last time we licensed a new nuclear power
plant?
Dr. Long. The last one was in 1991.
Mr. Bartlett. This industry, since we are not building new
plants and many of them are coming up to their age limit, they
probably don't--they probably see themselves as a somewhat
threatened industry, and I would understand their reluctance to
be involved in cost share. How much of the nuclear energy R&D
is industry cost share?
Mr. Magwood. I guess I should answer that. It--there isn't
a program. I think that if you look at, for example, the
programs we have like Nuclear Power 2010, which are more
focused on near-term deployment of nuclear plants, it is a 50/
50 cost share. We expect the industry to put up as much as we
put up. For some of the very long-term technology, such as the
use of advanced nuclear technology to produce hydrogen, we are
not really expecting a very large industry cost share with
that, because it is really beyond where industry's mind is at
this point. For the Next Generation Nuclear Plant program, we
are hoping to see a cost share, not just with the industry, but
with the international community, over the life of the project.
We are hoping to get 50/50, but we are--we will see how that
pans out. But you know, we think that cost sharing is
important, not just because it saves the government money. I
think that is the last reason to do it. I think it is important
because it shows what industry, in the industry's judgment and
the private sector's judgment, which I think, in these things,
is better than our judgment, quite frankly, and what they think
really is relevant and important to the future. And I think
cost sharing gives you that guidance.
Mr. Bartlett. So the appropriate cost share is determined
by the specific project and how quickly that could be
commercialized and how much benefit industry sees that they
would get from that.
Let me ask you a generic question that I think a great many
of our citizens are asking about our nuclear waste. We have a
nuclear waste, which is so hot that we have to squirrel it away
for maybe a quarter of a million years. I think a lot of people
are having a problem understanding why something that has that
much energy in it can't be good for something. Can you help
explain why this stuff, which is so hot, we have to put
somewhere out of sight for a quarter of a million years, isn't
it good for something?
Dr. Waltar. Let me take a quick crack at that. Yes, it is
good for something. Frankly, to take our spent nuclear fuel and
throw it in the ground, to me, is an atrocity. For one thing,
the original high heat comes principally from Strontium-90 and
Thesium-137, fission gases. Frankly, Thesium-137 is a good
gamma emitter. It probably could be used for cleaning up
municipal sewage areas. I chaired a Gordon Research Conference
a few years ago. This--I don't know if many people are familiar
with that. It is where scientists--the best scientists in the
world get together and discuss what they want to and nothing
leaks out of that because for fear that their funding could be
cut or something like that. Now I had the audacity to suggest
that perhaps we should be looking at what we now called waste
as a resource. If we could look ahead, cubby-style, begin with
the end in mind, the Strontium-90 could be used for power
sources to power underground cables from New York to London or
Paris rather than using copper wires until we are to re-
energize these cables and so forth. There is a lot of potential
if we think of it in terms of possibly using this as a resource
rather than waste. Strontium-90, again, when the daughter
product is Itrium-90, a good beta emitter that is now being
used for many medical purposes. In fact, a study that was done
in 1995 indicated that nuclear technology as such far more was
going into nuclear medicine, agriculture, industry and so forth
than in nuclear power. I mean, something like $330 billion a
year. Only $90 billion in nuclear energy. So a lot of these
byproducts, if we are smart enough to use those, and clearly,
the fuel that--if we throw the stuff in the ground that still
has Plutonium in it, that, of course, can be cycled back to
your earlier question, it can be used in the breeder reactor
and so forth. We can extract enormous amounts of energy. So I
think we have to rise above the rhetoric, if you will, and
recognize, yes, rather than being a waste, this, in fact, could
be a tremendous resource. We have stuff concentrated that
potentially can be used. Now that is not to suggest that we
trivialize this. I don't, in any sense, suggest that. You know,
we have got to protect it, but frankly, I think we need to
start thinking about this in a way of how can we use this
resource rather than throwing it away.
Mr. Bartlett. I would suggest that an aggressive program to
do just that would go a long way to convince the American
public that this is something we ought to be doing. We have far
too much waste across our whole country that could become a
resource, and we just live with the old view that it is, you
know, a waste. And there is almost nothing that should be a
waste. Almost everything is good for something, and there is a
challenge to figure out what it is good for. And I am not sure
that we are aggressively addressing that challenge in our
nuclear waste.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Biggert. If the gentleman would yield for just a
moment, Argonne lab, we have been working on--they have been
working on this issue for a long time with the EMT. I know Mr.
Magwood and I have discussed this many times. And then it went
to the spent fuel and transmutation, I can't even say the name,
and then now it is the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative. And so,
this is to negate these for their storage, because it would
reduce the spent fuel so that it--right now, Yucca Mountain
is--all of this waste was put into the Yucca Mountain that we
now have. It would fill it up, and this reduces not only the
amount that would go in there, but also the number of years
down to 300 years, I believe it is. So I think there really is
this going on, and I don't think that too many people know
about it.
Dr. Ehlers is recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Ehlers. Thank you.
I just wanted to add that when you, Madame Chair, you asked
the question about people coming to the national lab, and I
have to express some reservations about that. It is kind of a
remote location, and most of the national labs, which have lots
of users flying in and out, are located near transportation
facilities and so forth. I think, Mr. Magwood, you should be
very concerned about that. Perhaps build a small airport on
site if you are serious about getting people in and out on a
regular basis.
I just--a couple questions. First of all, this Next
Generation Nuclear Plant, is there a cost estimate on that, Mr.
Magwood?
Mr. Magwood. Very preliminary cost estimates. It is--it
clearly will be probably between $11/2 billion and $2 billion,
if--when you include all of the research and everything that
goes into it, but that is a very, very preliminary estimate.
Mr. Ehlers. Okay. And that is about the ballpark I would
have guessed. So it is a huge facility. It is not clear to me
from some of the comments made here whether this is intended to
be primarily a research facility or a production facility. I
have heard different answers from the panel. What is your plan?
Mr. Magwood. Well, I can certainly tell you what our plan
is. We see the NGNP as a pilot facility that we would like to
see a Nuclear Regulatory Commission certification granted to,
so that the next--so that we would not just simply be an
experimental facility that a commercial utility could then, if
this proves successful in the future, could replicate or nearly
replicate the facility, with some modifications, obviously,
because of the experimental nature of this, and then go to the
commercial mode. We think that that is the target that makes
sense for this, because we are not anticipating that this will
be something that will be used for testing materials or testing
fuels as much as it is to prove the concept is commercially
viable, because we think that that is what is needed to drive
the recovering nuclear energy in the longer-term future, giving
it a technology that can make electricity and make hydrogen in
a cost-effective way.
Mr. Ehlers. Now I have heard over and over that the biggest
problem in the nuclear industry is that every new plant is an
experiment and that what we need is a standardized product that
people can put up with assurance that it is going to work and
not do a lot of research on every new building. Are you
envisioning that this would be--you say it is a pilot? Would
you envision this would be a model that other people would
replicate?
Mr. Magwood. That is certainly--that is the plan. The plan
is that we would achieve a design, achieve a plant that could
be replicated, not just in the United States, but
internationally, because one of the philosophies in the
Generation IV International Forum is that for nuclear to be
competitive in the future, the market for a particular nuclear
plant has to be as large as possible. And if you simply make a
few plants here, make a few plants there, you are never cost-
effective. You really have to be in the position of having an
ongoing production to make it cost-effective, and we think that
that is what this can do, and many of international partners
seem to think this is very possible.
Mr. Ehlers. And then you would really have to use the KISS
principle, Keep It Simple, Stupid, so that it is easily
replicated at a relatively low cost.
The--another question. Are you also, in your labs,
investigating the production of hydrogen using other high-
temperature means? Now let me explain the reason for that. It--
hydrogen is not that easy to transport. It might make more
sense to produce a lot of electricity and transport the
electricity and then, in metropolitan areas, use that
electricity in a high-temperature facility to produce the
hydrogen. Are you investigating these possibilities as well
rather than just making the hydrogen at the nuclear facility?
Mr. Magwood. We are really running a very, very broad
program in the Department. The Secretary issued, I think it is
almost two years ago, a hydrogen posture plan that basically
states that all of the elements of the Department involved in
energy, our office, the Fossil Energy Office, Energy
Efficiency, and Science, are all looking at different ways of
producing and transporting hydrogen. And we are not making a
judgment as to whether nuclear is the best way or biological
sources are the best way to make hydrogen or even, you know,
coal-based technologies are the best way. We are going to
basically continue down all of these research paths, and we
think that ultimately it will become clearer as we go on which
way is appropriate. In my office, we are looking principally--
we are looking at the broad range of technologies that can
apply high temperatures, but we are focused on two right now.
One is thermochemical, as you have mentioned, which is a very
tricky technology at this point. We haven't solved all of
those--all of the questions yet. But we are also looking at
thermal-assisted electrolysis, which is probably something that
could rely more on remote generation of electricity. But we are
looking at those. But at this point, we are expecting that
there would be a central generation of hydrogen, but we will
see what the future holds.
Mr. Ehlers. Well, my point of this is simply that the
premise of constructing this may not be a good premise. This
may be a very expensive way to go, if you are designing this to
produce hydrogen when there are other better and cheaper ways
of doing it. And so you are talking $1 billion to $11/2 billion
on a project where you are not sure that that is the best way
to proceed.
Mr. Magwood. Well, that is why we are very focused on not
simply having a hydrogen-producing facility but one that can do
hydrogen or--and/or electricity, because this technology,
because of the high temperatures, is also a very, very
efficient way of making electricity. So then if it turns out
that hydrogen is better done by using biological means or some
other means, we still have the electricity. We are going to
need electricity for a long, long time, and we think that this
technology, even if we don't go forward with hydrogen, will be
a very, very competitive way to make electricity, not just
because of the efficiency of the technology, but also because
of the smaller size of the reactors. We think that, in the
long-term future, smaller systems, and these systems are
probably about 250-megawatts electric from what we are looking
at right now, provide for a better economic model for the
industry. And we have heard this from many people in the
utilities that being able to add smaller modules over time
instead of one large plant that costs $2 billion would be a
much more effective way to proceed. So we are looking at that
as a possible future.
Mr. Ehlers. So you are talking about a 250-megawatt plant
for $1 billion to $11/2 billion?
Mr. Magwood. Well, that is--when I talk about the $1
billion to $11/2 billion, I am talking about the whole
development costs, not just the construction.
Mr. Ehlers. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And I would point out you
said and/or. There is a huge difference. If you put the and in
there, you are probably adding another $200 million if you are
going to try to do both the gas--the hydrogen production and
the electricity production.
Mr. Magwood. Well, our hydrogen--we have a set--we have--
what we have done is we have a base program to develop the NGNP
technology, but that doesn't include the hydrogen development.
The hydrogen development is an entirely separate program called
Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative. And if we are successful on both
accounts, we will marry the two technologies somewhere down the
road and link the NGNP with the nuclear hydrogen production
system. And if nuclear hydrogen proves not to be successful,
that could go away. We could simply focus on electricity
production.
Mr. Ehlers. All I would say is good luck. You have got an
immense project here, and it is going to take an incredible
amount of careful planning to get it done at a reasonable cost
and a reasonably assured result.
Let me, if I may, just in conclusion, join in saying that I
think when the Carter Administration some years ago decided
against reprocessing waste, that was a political decision. That
was not a scientific decision. And unfortunately, we--the
attitude still is that that was the correct decision. I don't
think it was. I think we could handle the waste much more
efficiently and much more safely if we reprocessed it. But
unfortunately, the efforts of reprocessing have resulted in
considerable environmental contamination because of wrong
procedures, sloppy approaches, improper oversight, and that has
also created a problem. And we are still trying to clean up
from all of those activities. But I really think I agree with
Dr. Bartlett on that. That really should be the way to go and
separate out what we can use and then deal properly with the
remainder, whether we transmute it into something that is safer
or do something else. I think we can do a lot better than we
are doing, especially when it takes 20 years to dig a hole in
the ground.
Chairman Biggert. Thank you, Dr. Ehlers.
And before we bring this hearing to a close, I want to
thank our experts, our panelists, for testifying before this
subcommittee today. And if there is no objection, the record
will remain open for additional statements from Members and for
answers to any follow-up questions the Subcommittee may ask of
the panelists. Without objection, so ordered.
And the hearing is now adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:47 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix:
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by William D. Magwood, IV, Director of the Office of Nuclear
Energy, Science, and Technology, The Department of Energy
Q1. The Department has indicated that it will select a contractor for
operations and maintenance of the Idaho National Laboratory (INTL) in
early November 2004. The Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee
(NERAC) subcommittee charged with recommending measures to establish
the laboratory as a world class facility is not expected to finalize
its report until October 2004. Given this timeline, how will the
Department incorporate the recommendations of the NERAC subcommittee
into the provisions of the INL contract?
A1. The 1NL contract is a 10-year, performance-based contract.
Throughout the life of the contract, the Department will develop
performance measures to keep the contract focused on the goal of
establishing the laboratory as a world-class research center within 10
years. The NERAC report will provide essential guidance to the
Department as it develops the performance measures to achieve this
goal.
Q2. After its research mission is completed, will the Next Generation
Nuclear Plant (NGNP) be dedicated to commercial electricity production?
If so, how has the expectation of commercial operation of the NGNP
affected the cost-sharing provisions of the project?
A2. DOE's goal for cost share over the life of the project is 50
percent DOE funding and 50 percent industry contribution. As part of
the project, the NGNP would be operated by its commercial owner(s) for
as long as necessary to demonstrate the principles of its design, its
operating reliability, and to prove the value of the technology to the
marketplace. This demonstration period is thought to be five or more
years. Once the project is complete, it is possible that the commercial
owner(s) may elect to retain the plant and operate it for profit. We
expect the agreement between DOE and the commercial owner(s) would
contain an adjustment mechanism to take into account the additional
value to the commercial owner(s) resulting from a decision to operate
the plant for profit.
Q3. What specific provisions in the operations and maintenance (O&M)
contract for the Idaho National Laboratory will require research
collaborations with other national laboratories involved in nuclear
energy R&D? To what extent will the selection of the O&M contractor be
based on the inclusion of a well formulated plan for collaborations
with nuclear energy R&D resources at other national laboratories?
A3. The Department believes that to provide effective leadership for
the U.S. nuclear energy technology research endeavor, the INL must not
only conduct successful research in Idaho, but must effectively
coordinate and collaborate with other DOE national laboratories. While
we plan to establish the INL as the U.S. ``command center'' for nuclear
energy research, it is critical that we take full advantage of the
important nuclear energy technology capabilities and expertise at other
laboratories. The request for proposal (RFP) reflects this. As a
principle example, the RFP requires all bidders to provide a clear plan
for collaboration with nuclear energy R&D resources at other national
laboratories. This plan will be an important element in the evaluation
and selection process.
Section M of the RFP includes the criteria for evaluation of
proposals and the selection of the new contractor. The Technical and
Business Management Plan (M.4 (a)--Criterion 4 of the Capabilities and
Approach Proposal) states that the Government will evaluate the
offeror's approach and innovation in creating a multi-program
laboratory with world class capabilities through international,
industrial and academic collaboration.
Additionally, the mission performance requirements in Criterion
4(c) of Section M includes references to collaborations with other
national laboratories, programs within the DOE, other federal agencies,
universities, international partners and the private sector.